No constitutional infirmity in One Rank One Pension scheme: says
Supreme Court [16.3.2022]
New Delhi, 16th March,
2022, Wednesday
The Supreme Court on Wednesday
upheld the government's decision on One Rank, One Pension (OROP), and said that
it does not find any constitutional infirmity on the OROP principle.
The SC has upheld the manner in
which the Central Government introduced the OROP scheme in defence forces as
per its notification dated November 7, 2015. "We find no constitutional
infirmity in the principle OROP adopted," Court said.
OROP is a policy decision of the
government and it is not for the court to go into the adjudication of policy
matters, the SC added.
Furthermore, the SC has directed
pending re-fixation exercise of OROP should be carried out from July 1, 2019
and arrears should be paid in 3 months.
A bench headed by Justice DY
Chandrachud had reserved its verdict on February 23 asking the Centre whether
the hardships of ex-servicemen be obviated to a certain extent if the periodic
revision of OROP is reduced from five years to a lesser period.
The plea had been filed by the
Indian Ex-servicemen Movement (IESM) through advocate Balaji Srinivasan against
the Centre's formula of OROP.
The top court had said that
whatever it will decide, it will be on the conceptual ground and not on
figures. It said, “When you 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 had earlier 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.