Supreme Court reserves judgment on plea questioning Centre's OROP notification

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved the judgment on a plea of the Indian Ex-Serviceman Movement (IESM) questioning the November 7, 2015, notification issued by the Centre, implementing One Rank One Pension (OROP) in the armed forces.

A bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud, Surya Kant, and Vikram Nath said: "We have heard Huzefa Ahmadi, senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners, and N. Venkataraman, Additional Solicitor General appearing on behalf of the respondents. Arguments concluded. Judgment reserved."

In an affidavit settled by Venkataraman, the Centre said: "One Rank One Pension implies that uniform pension be paid to the armed forces personnel retiring in the same rank with the same length of service irrespective of the date of retirement and any future enhancement in the rates of pension to be automatically passed on to the past pensioners."

The IESM laid repeated emphasis on the expression automatically to convey that the revision of OROP should be automatic and the Centre had failed to do and has instead made it once in five years. Rejecting this argument, the affidavit said: "The dynamic calculations as contended by the petitioners is unheard of in practice whether it is pay scale or pension or any other financial emoluments given to a government servant. This is not in vogue for the simple reason that it is impossible to put it as a scheme of implementation."

The Centre also answered the query whether the statement made by the Finance Minister on February 17, 2014 was based on any decision or recommendation by the Union Cabinet. "Respondent respectfully submits that this statement 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 Rule 12 of the GoI (Transaction of Business Rules) 1961 on November 7, 2015," added the affidavit.

"More importantly, the policy document states that OROP is to bridge the gap between the rates of pension of current and past pensioners, which objective has been duly complied with."

During the hearing, Ahmadi, appearing for IESM, said what is the morality of this government after a minister gives a statement on the floor of the house that it has, in principle, agreed to implement OROP. He added that the sum and substance of their arguments is that they are not inclined to give OROP, but they will give one rank different pensions. He added that the ASG said it could have been given at 10 years but they chose 5 years for the review.

The petitioners have questioned the November 7, 2015 notification implementing OROP, in which the government adopted a modified definition of the expression, under which the gap between the rates of pension of current and past pensioners were to be bridged at periodic intervals.