Defence ministry cannot take law into its own hands on OROP arrears: Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday said the Ministry of Defence cannot take law in its own hands by issuing a communication "unilaterally" that One Rank-One Pension (OROP) arrears to pensioners of the armed forces will be paid in four installments and sought a payment plan by March 20.

Noting that over four lakh pensioners have died since the OROP litigation started in 2016, the court also asked the defence ministry to immediately withdraw its communication and told Attorney General R Venkataramani to prepare a note giving details of the quantum of payment to be paid, the modalities to be adopted and what's the priority segment.

The January 20, 2023 communication had said the OROP arrears will be paid in four equal installments to ex-servicemen. The court observed that the defence ministry's January 20 communication was "directly contrary" to its verdict on March 16, 2022 that had directed payment of complete arrears within three months and it cannot unilaterally say it will pay OROP arrears in four installments.

During the Monday hearing, the attorney general submitted that the Centre has paid to some pensioners and will be paying rest of them one installment of OROP arrears by March 31 but needed some more time for further disbursement. "First withdraw (your) January 20 notification on payment of OROP arrears, then we will consider your application for time," a bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala sternly told Venkataramani.

"Mr Attorney General, the ministry cannot take law in its own hands by issuing such communication on payment of OROP arrears in four installments. This January 20, communication is directly contrary to our verdict." The bench told Venkataramani that the concern of the court is that ex-servicemen get their amount at the earliest and there should not be any delay in payment of the arrears especially those who are above 60-70 years.