SC raps MoD over delay in resolution of military pension anomalies

Vijay Mohan

Chandigarh, July 28

The Supreme Court has taken a serious view of the Defence Ministry’s delay in resolving pension anomalies of retired officers of the rank of Captain in the ‘One Rank One Pension’ (OROP) scheme.

In orders passed this week, the apex court observed that it was inclined to enhance the pension by 20 per cent in addition to imposing exemplary costs if the ministry continued to seek more time from the court and delayed implementation. The case is now scheduled to come up for hearing on July 30.

The genesis of the issue is the OROP introduced in 2015 when the pensions of current retirees was fixed as the pension of past retirees. As there was no proper data for the ranks of regular Captains and Majors since the minimum current rank of retirement on attainment of pensionable service is Lieutenant Colonel, there were certain anomalies in the pension tables for Captains and Majors.

Thereafter, a ‘One Man Judicial Committee’ (OMJC) appointed by the Defence Ministry had recommended the resolution of this anomaly in 2016 but no decision was thereafter taken by the ministry on it. Later, the Kochi and Chandigarh Benches of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) had directed the ministry to resolve the anomaly based on the OMJC recommendations in a time-bound manner.

However, rather than implementing the judgment, the Defence Ministry challenged the decision of the AFT in the SC. Despite multiple opportunities granted by the SC to take action on resolution of the anomaly, the ministry failed to resolve it, leading to the strong observations

by the SC.