The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the government’s decision on One Rank One Pension for defense forces and said it does not see any constitutional flaw in the OROP principle and the November 7, 2015 notification. “One Rank-One Pension (OROP) is a policy decision of the government and the court does not interfere in policy matters,” the apex court bench said.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath said that the policy decision of the Center of OROP is not arbitrary. The bench directed that the exercise of rescheduling of OROP should be done from July 1, 2019 and the arrears to the pensioners should be paid within three months.
The apex court disposed of a petition filed by the Retired Sainik Association seeking implementation of ‘One Rank One Pension’ with automatic annual revision instead of the existing policy of periodic review once in five years on the recommendation of the Bhagat Singh Koshyari Committee. was requested.
Announcing the operational part of the judgment, Justice Chandrachud observed that all pensioners who hold the same rank cannot form a homogeneous class keeping in view the Assured Career Progression and Revised Assured Career Progression.
The top court said there is no legal mandate that equal pension should be given to pensioners of the same rank, as they do not constitute a homogeneous class. After a long hearing in this case, which lasted for about four days, the court had reserved the verdict on 23 February.
The decision comes on a petition filed by the Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement (IESM) through advocate Balaji Srinivasan against the Centre’s formula for OROP. The top court had said that whatever decision it will take will be based on ideological basis and not on data.
It said, “When the Center makes amendments after five years, the arrears of five years are not taken into account. If the period is reduced from five years, the hardships of the ex-servicemen can be reduced to some extent.