Ex-officers upset as SC upholds govt ruling on pension scheme

THE TOP COURT UPHELD THE GOVERNMENT’S IMPLEMENTATION OF ONE RANK ONE PENSION SCHEME IN DEFENCE SECTOR

NEW DELHI: Former servicemen on Wednesday expressed disappointment with the final outcome of their case in the Supreme Court against the Centre’s implementation of the one rank one pension (OROP) scheme, which was announced by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in 2015.

In its highly anticipated ruling, the top court upheld the government’s implementation of the scheme and found no constitutional infirmity in the OROP principle adopted by it.

The scheme, a decades-old demand of former servicemen, promised equal pension to military personnel retiring in the same rank with the same length of service, regardless of the date of their retirement.

The court found no merit in the main demand of the ex-servicemen petitioners that the pensions of veterans should be automatically revised every year instead of the current model that is based on review once in 5 years.

“We respect the Supreme Court’s ruling but our position on the matter remains the same. We have still not been given OROP. What we have got is one rank many pensions,” said Group Captain VK Gandhi (retd), vice chairman, Indian Ex-servicemen Movement.

He said the November 7 notification, issued by the defence ministry, for the implementation of OROP from July 1, 2014, had contradictory provisions.

“On the one hand, it talked about uniform pension for former servicemen. On the other, it prescribed a revision once in five years. The two don’t go together,” Gandhi said.

The notification said, “OROP implies that uniform pension be paid to the defence forces personnel 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 also said in future, the pension would be re-fixed every five years. Disposing of the petition, the top court held that the quinquennial re-fixing of pensions of veterans was in line with the November 7 notification.

The veteran community is disheartened and feels it has been given step-motherly treatment by the government, said Colonel Mukul Dev (retd), a former officer in the army’s Judge Advocate General branch.