Decide upon OROP anomalies within four months, Supreme Court tells defence ministry

Vijay Mohan

Chandigarh, December 18

The much-awaited recommendations of the One Man Judicial Committee (OMJC) constituted to redress anomalies in the One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme, pending with the government since 2016, could see the light of the day with the Supreme Court directing action on the same within a period of four months.

While issuing orders for implementation of OROP for the armed forces in 2015, the government had announced an OMJC, comprising Justice Narasimha Reddy, to look into the anomalies arising in the fixation of pension under the scheme, if any.

Though the OMJC was not expected to amend or tinker with the basic tenets of OROP scheme, which was also recently upheld by the Supreme Court, it was supposed to go into anomalies arising while implementing the scheme, such as aberrations in tables, procedural matters, inter-service issues or any other matter referred to it.

The OMJC had submitted its report on October 26, 2016 and the Ministry of Defence had consequently constituted another internal anomalies committee on July 19, 2017 to examine its recommendations. The final orders were not issued thereafter and the matter remained pending with the ministry.

In the meantime, several retired officers of the rank of Lieutenant Commander of the Navy (equivalent to Major), led by Lt Cdr Mathew Joseph, had approached the Kochi Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT). They averred that pensions under OROP were to be fixed on the average of the live data of current retirees, but their pensions could not be fixed correctly because of non-availability of such data in the absence of officers retiring as Majors on completion of full service under the current promotional system. The issue affected officers of the rank of Captain also.

While the defence ministry admitted before the AFT that there was an anomaly in fixation of pension of Majors, it stated that the matter had been considered by the OMJC on which the decision of the government was still awaited and the correct pension would be released when the report of the OMJC is implemented. The AFT had then directed the government to act upon the removal of the anomalies within six months.

Rather than acting upon the directions, the Union of India went into direct appeal to the Supreme Court against the order of the AFT. However, earlier this week the Supreme Court’s bench comprising Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice MM Sundresh dismissed the appeal and ordered that the matter be decided expeditiously by the anomalies committee, within a period of four months.

Sources point out that the removal of anomalies in the existing OROP tables would not cause any substantial financial burden on the government. Rather, it would result in amelioration of certain basic incongruities and procedural shortcomings which have affected the ranks of Captain and Majors the most, the resolution of which was being eagerly awaited for last six years.