One Rank one pension: Supreme Court notice to Centre in petition alleging “non -implementation and false promise”
The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Central government in a petitionRam Jeth filed by Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement (petitioner) seeking a declaration that non-implementation of ‘One rank one pension scheme’ is unconstitutional and violative of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India.
The matter was heard by a Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and C Nagappan. Senior Advocate Ram Jethmalani appeared for the petitioner.
The petitioner is a body of ex-servicemen’s organisations as well as individual military veterans from all three defence forces – Army, Navy and Air Force.
One rank one pension is the uniform payment of pension to ex-servicemen who retire in the same rank with the same length of service irrespective of their date of retirement. It also involves future enhancement in the rates for recent pensioners being passed on to the past pensioners.
In the petition drawn by advocate Arunava Mukherjee and filed through advocate Balaji Srinivasan, the petitioners have given exhaustive history of OROP. They have claimed that OROP was followed for 26 years after independence but was “unjustly changed” in 1973 on the recommendation of the Third Central Pay Commission.
The petition then goes on to criticise both the UPA government and the current NDA government for denying OROP to ex-servicemen.
According to the petitioner, the UPA government “astronomically enhanced the salary of civil servants” and introduced Non-functional Financial Upgradation scheme for civil servants but the same was not allowed for Defence services.
“… these decisions had the effect of arbitrarily and discriminatorily downgrading the pay-grades, pension, allowances and status of Defence Services”, the petition states.
The petitioner has also trained its gun on the current NDA government. Under the head “False promises made to ex-servicemen and electoral fraud on voters”, the petitioner has alleged that,
“During his election campaign, Mr. Narendra Modi promised that OROP will be implemented. Although, the Hon’ble Defence Minister had worked out a package with an expected outlay of Rs. 8296.40 crores per annum, it is yet to be implemented.”
However, the major grievance of the petitioner is that though the Central government sanctioned OROP, the true meaning of OROP was “illegally twisted by the government to create a perverse definition and murder the spirit of the OROP.”
As per the petition, in a letter written on November 7, 2015, by the Joint Secretary of Department of Ex-servicemen Welfare, to the Chiefs of Army Staff, Naval Staff and Air Staff, the settled and true definition of OROP was arbitrarily and cunningly altered.
“It described OROP as uniform payment of pension to retired servicemen retiring in the same rank with the same length of service, regardless of their date of retirement which implies bridging the gap between the rates of pension of current and past pensioners at periodic intervals. It is submitted that the new perverse definition of OROP does not include that any future enhancement in the rates for recent pensioners would be “automatically” passed on to the past pensioners.”
The petitioner has contended that this new perverse definition will lead to a situation where the pension of an ex-serviceman will be less than the pension drawn by an ex-serviceman who retires in 2014 until an annual periodic review is done to correct the anomaly.
Relying on the case of Union of India v. SPS Vains, the petitioner has submitted that this is arbitrary, unconstitutional and violative of Articles 14 and 21.
Based on the above, the petitioner has made of slew of prayers including a prayer to quash the letter of November 7, 2015 as unconstitutional.
The Court after hearing the matter issued notice to the respondents. The matter is now likely to be listed after 8 weeks.
Read at: Bar&Bench
COMMENTS
The orop commission not yet judstified the penson scale for subadars Y group equalent refer table9 and table7 the same rank same service same grade has given variation.why this parity . Particularly y group subedas equlant in Army,Airforce & Navy has cheated by the orop commission. Why ths one orop commission, it is a block dat for orop commission,we hope before 7 th cpc pension payment this parity pension variation will be corrected by the orop commission. It is purpossly degraded the y group subadars,it must be currected.
Pl look this table 7 and table9 of all Y Group subedars how they are purposely cheating us. All are neithere frad nor one side supporters in orop.
The orop commission not yet judstified the penson scale for subadars Y group equalent refer table9 and table7 the same rank same service same grade has given variation.why this parity . Particularly y group subedas equlant in Army,Airforce & Navy has cheated by the orop commission. Why ths one orop commission, it is a block dat for orop commission,we hope before 7 th cpc pension payment this parity pension variation will be corrected by the orop commission. It is purpossly degraded the y group subadars,it must be currected.
Whatever grievances there are, we can always reflect them in our VOTES. What better tool is there to teach the smart alex a lesson?
The Govt has made the armed forces beggars. & ensuring that the beggars can't be choosers !
Manyore completed doneby orop commission it is un justified by the orop commission for exable 15years and 25 years is same eepension how it is 2nd thing compare table 7 and 9 regular army subedars table 7in y group equalent in army airforce and navy has 1150 basic variation for more service person then table 9. it is particularly un jusified by orop commission.