The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that One Rank-One Pension (OROP) in armed forces is a policy decision of the Government and suffers from no constitutional infirmity.
The bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant, and Vikram Nath said the Centre’s policy decision of OROP is not arbitrary and it is not for the court to go into the policy matters of the Government.
The apex court directed that the pending re-fixation exercise of OROP which has not been done due to pendency of the matter before the court after the expiry of five years should be carried out from July 1, 2019, and arrears be paid to the pensioners in three months.
The court had reserved verdict on February 23 after a lengthy hearing in the matter for nearly four days.
The SC disposed of a plea filed by the ex-servicemen association seeking implementation of the OROP as recommended by the Bhagat Singh Koshyari Committee with an automatic annual revision, instead of the current policy of periodic review once in five years.
In the operating part of the verdict, Justice Chandrachud said that all pensioners who hold the same rank may not form a homogenous class while taking into account the Assured Career Progression and Modified Assured Career Progression. There is no legal mandate that pensioners who hold the same rank must be given the same pension as they do not constitute a homogenous class, the top court said.
The verdict came on a plea filed by the Indian Ex-servicemen Movement (IESM) through advocate Balaji Srinivasan against the Centre’s formula of OROP. The SC had said that whatever it will decide, it will be on the conceptual ground and not on figures. The apex court had said, “When you (Centre) revise after five years, the arrears of five years are not taken into account. The hardships of ex-servicemen can be obviated to a certain extent if the period is reduced from five years to a lesser period”.
The Centre has said that when the revision takes place after five years, the maximum last drawn pay which has all the factors is taken into account with the lowest in the bracket and it is the golden mean which is being given. “When we framed the policy, we didn’t want anyone post-Independence to be left behind. The equalisation was done. We covered the entire past 60-70 years. Now, to amend it through the court’s direction, the implications are not known to us. Anything with finance and economics has to be considered with caution. Period of five years is reasonable and it has financial implications also”, the government had said.
The clarification was given by the Centre after the top court had asked the government to clarify whether the statement made by the then Finance Minister on February 17, 2014, was based on any decision or recommendation by the Union Cabinet. On February 16, the top court had said that Centre’s hyperbole on the OROP policy presented a much “rosier picture” than what is actually given to the pensioners of the Armed forces.