OROP govt's policy decision, suffers from no constitutional infirmity: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court said on Wednesday that One RankOne Pension OROP in Armed forces is a policy decision of the government and suffers from no constitutional infirmityA bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud Surya Kant and Vikram Nath said the Centres policy decision of OROP is not arbitrary and it is not for the court to go into the policy matters of the governmentIt directed that the pending refixation exercise of OROP which has not been done due to pendency of 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 monthsThe top court disposed of a plea filed by Exservicemen 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 yearsPronouncing 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 ProgressionThere 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 It had reserved verdict on February 23 after a lengthy hearing in the matter for nearly four daysThe verdict came on a plea which has been filed by the Indian Exservicemen Movement IESM through advocate Balaji Srinivasan against the Centres formula of OROPThe top court had said that whatever it will decide it will be on the conceptual ground and not on figuresIt had said When you Centre revise after five years the arrears of five years are not taken into account The hardships of exservicemen can be obviated to a certain extent if the period is reduced from five years to a lesser periodThe 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 givenWhen we framed the policy we didnt want anyone postIndependence to be left behind The equalisation was done We covered the entire past 6070 yearsNow to amend it through the courts direction the implications are not known to us Anything with finance and economics has to be considered with cautionPeriod of five years is reasonable and it has financial implications also the government had saidSenior advocate Huzefa Ahmadi and Srinivasan appearing for IESM had said that the court has to keep in mind that it relates to older soldiers who fought man to man unlike soldiers of todays time who have sophisticated armsIt is the older soldiers who need the OROP the most If we accept the submission of the Centre it will be like allowing the illegality to continue which the court wants to root it out Ahmadi saidOn February 21 the Centre had said that the statement on inprinciple approval of OROP for defence services was made by then Finance Minister P Chidambaram during his interimbudget speech on February 17 2014 without any recommendation by the then union cabinetRespondent respectfully submits that this statement of the then Finance Minister dated February 17 2014 is not based on any decision or recommendation by the then Union Cabinet On the other hand the cabinet secretariat conveyed the approval of the Prime Minister in terms of Rules 12 of the Government of India Transaction of Business Rules 1961 on November 7 2015 it said in the affidavitThe 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 CabinetOn February 16 the top court had said that Centres hyperbole on the OROP policy presented a much rosier picture than what is actually given to the pensioners of the Armed forcesOn July 11 2016 the top court had issued notice on the plea filed by IEMS through advocate Balaji Srinivasan seeking implementation of OROP as recommended by the Koshyari Committee with an automatic annual revision instead of the current policy of periodic review once in five yearsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever