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Last month, the Supreme Court had pulled the Ministry of Defence for issuing a communication outlining a different scheme of payments of arrears under the OROP scheme, than what had been directed by the court itself.
The Supreme Court today asked the Defence Ministry to withdraw its notification of January 20, 2023 stating that they would pay the arrears under One Rank One Pension (OROP) Scheme by way of four equal installments to be paid quarterly.
"...you can't take the law in your hands", CJI Chandrachud remarked while telling the government that the court would consider the application for extension, only once they withdraw the said communication.
As the hearing progressed, court inquired as to when the government was planning to pay the arrears. To this Attorney General Venkataraman replied saying that he was keeping it under his supervision.
Hearing this, Senior Advocate Hufeza Ahmadi, appearing for the petitioners told the court, "Every time they ask for extension, after making four applications for extensions. Now in 2023, they want to pay in four installments, this is very unfair. They say they don't have money to pay these pensioners but they have money for everything else".
He added that the government was looking to delay the process by two years again.
CJI Chandrachud thus asked the Centre to submit a short note, saying what quantam had been paid and what future modalities would be put in place.
"Come with a good note on Monday. Give it to us in two parts: What has been paid, what is the modality for future payments, some categorization of who will be paid first..", the CJI ordered while posting the matter on next Monday.
Last month, the Court had come down heavily on the Ministry for issuing a communication defying the Court's earlier order directing it to pay arrears by March 15, 2023.
CJI Chandrachud had questioned the Ministry's authority to issue such a notification and said, "How can you issue such a communication against our orders?"
"You tell the secretary we are going to take action against him for that January 20th communication. Either withdraw it, or we are going to issue a contempt notice to the Ministry of Defense", the bench told ASG N Venkataraman.
Defending the Ministry's actions, ASG Venkataraman had told court that the Ministry should be given time to carry out the exercise as per the court's order and a compliance affidavit may be filed in April.
On hearing this, CJI directed that a personal affidavit explaining the circumstances in which such unilateral decision was made by the department be filed by the concerned Secretary.
"At the least we will now direct payment of interest on the arrears as submitted by Mr. Ahmadi, on behalf of the petitioners. We are not directing them now, but we will. Place it immediately after the Holi holidays", ordered the bench.
On January 9, while referring to its order passed in March last year whereby the Supreme Court had directed the Central Government to pay arrears to Army personnel within 3 months as per the Defense Ministry's One Rank One Pension Scheme, a CJI Chandrachud led bench had directed that the said exercise must be completed by March 15.
By the same earlier order, the Supreme Court had also upheld the central government’s implementation of One Rank One Pension (OROP) Policy for the Armed Forces. The order was passed in the plea by an association "Indian Ex-Service Movement".
The plea had alleged that OROP led to the creation of a separate class among personnel equally situated in rank and length of service.
The government’s stand that equalisation of pension would happen periodically every five years was also challenged. It was contended that a gap of five years would leave them at a great disadvantage.
The Supreme Court had then held that there was no legal mandate that pensioners who hold the same rank must be given the same pension.
It had added that all pensioners who held the same rank may not form a homogeneous class. The court had further remarked that a new pensionary benefit can be made applicable from a prospective date, with the only condition that it cannot split up a homogenous class.
Furthermore, the court had ordered for a refixation exercise to be conducted by the central government for a period of 5 years with regard to pension payable to Army Personnel as stated in the OROP policy in accordance with the November 7, 2015 notification.
Case Title: Indian Ex Servicemen Movement vs. Union Of India
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