News Desk, AnyTV, New Delhi
Published by: Gaurav Pandey
Updated Wed, 23 Feb 2022 08:38 PM IST
Summary
The Supreme Court has reserved its decision on the petition of the Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement regarding One Rank One Pension.
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Expansion
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath, while reserving the verdict, said that whatever decision will be taken will be on ideological basis and not on data. The bench said when you (Centre) modify the policy after five years, then five years’ arrears are not taken into account. The hardships of ex-servicemen can be reduced to some extent if it is reduced to less than five years.
Additional Solicitor General N Venkataraman, appearing for the Centre, said that when this policy was formulated, we did not want that any post-independence soldier should be left behind. Equality was fixed. We took the entire 60-70 years under its purview. Now, to amend it through the direction of the court will also have to be considered from the financial point of view. A period of five years is reasonable for this and it also has financial implications.
Senior advocates Huzefa Ahmadi and Balaji Srinivasan, appearing for IESM, said that it has to be kept in mind that it pertains to elderly soldiers who fought face to face unlike today’s soldiers who have good weapons. Such soldiers need OROP the most. If we go by the Centre, it would be like allowing the illegality to continue, which the court wants to end.
During the hearing on Monday, the central government told the Supreme Court that the statement of then finance minister P Chidambaram on January 17, 2014 on granting in-principle approval to OROP was without the recommendation of the cabinet. At the same time, in the hearing of February 16, the Supreme Court had said, the Center has exaggerated the OROP policy. The pension beneficiaries of the Armed Forces paint a ‘far more rosy’ picture than the benefits actually given.