Chandigarh, June 6
About a year and a half after the recommendations of the AV Singh Committee on cadre restructure was implemented, short service commission (SSC) officers, including a number of women officers, continue to draw their old rank pay. This is because the government is yet to issue instructions to sanction rank pay which they are entitled to after promotion.
Following the implementation of the recommendations with effect from December 16, 2004, officers became eligible for faster promotions with consequential financial benefits. While they were promoted to the next rank on completion of the stipulated service period, they continue to draw their old rank pay.
This is unlike in the case of permanent commission (PC) officers, where they are drawing rank pay to which they are entitled to after promotion. According to affected officers, Majors are losing Rs 2,100-2,300 per month while Lieutenant-Colonels are losing Rs 2,600-2,800 per month on this account.
After the AV Singh Committee recommendations were implemented, officers became eligible for promotion to Major after six years of service and to Lieutenant-Colonel after 13 years of service. Last year, for the first time since women officers were inducted in 1992, they became eligible to wear the rank badges of Lieutenant-Colonel.
What is of concern to some women officers, who are eligible only for SSC, is that their term of engagement may be over before revised instructions for sanction of rank pay come through. It is now learnt that several women officers have written to the Chief of the Army Staff, urging him to remove the existing anomaly between SSC and PC officers. A reply is still being awaited.
“We are considering initiation of appropriate legal action if things do not move within reasonable time frame.” Arvind Moudgil, a locally based lawyer handling the cases of some of the affected officers said. “There cannot be any discrimination regarding sanction of allowances between SSC and PC officers as it violates Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. The Army should have worked out revisions for SSC in the same manner it did for PC officers,” he added.
The Controller of Defence Accounts (Officers) at Pune, when contacted by affected officers, maintained that the office has not received any instructions on revision of rank pay for SSC officers so far.
Sources in Army Headquarters said that the Military Secretary’s Branch, responsible for management of the army’s officer cadre, is still in the process of finalising the details concerning promotion and consequential allowances for SSC officers.
