Supreme Court upholds Centre's 'One Rank One Pension' policy for defence forces

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, March 16

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the Centre’s ‘One Rank One Pension’ policy for defence forces, saying there was no constitutional infirmity in it.

“The Central government has taken a policy decision. Such a decision lies within the ambit of policy-making powers of the government. We do not find any constitutional infirmity on the OROP principle and the notification dated November 7, 2015,” said a Bench led by Justices DY Chandrachud.

The Bench – which had reserved its verdict on February 23 after hearing petitioner Indian Ex-servicemen Movement (IESM) and the Centre – said there was very limited scope of judicial review of policy decisions taken by the executive in such matters.

It directed that the re-fixation exercise in terms of the OROP policy should be carried out with effect from July 1, 2019 and arrears should be paid to the beneficiaries within three months.

“We accordingly direct that a refixation exercise must be conducted by the government for a period of five years with regard to pension payable to army personnel as stated in the OROP policy in accordance with the November 7, 2015 notification. Refixation exercise to be carried out from July 1, 2019 and arrears to be paid to Army personnel within three months,” it ordered.

The Bench – which also included Justice Surya Kant – said there was no legal mandate that pensioners with the same rank must be given the same pension.

The top court clarified that its verdict in the DS Nakara case can’t be understood to have mandated OROP.

The Centre had contended that both ‘same rank’ and ‘same length of service’ were necessary conditions for availing of OROP benefits.

During the hearing, the Bench had posed several probing questions to the Centre over OROP policy and Modified Assured Career Progression (MACP) scheme and sought to know how it had been implemented.

“The problem is your hyperbole on the OROP policy presented a much rosier picture than what is actually given to the pensioners,” the Bench had said.

In an affidavit filed in the top court, the Ministry of Defence had said the petitioners’ contention on OROP defeated one of the core values of the OROP – which was not only same rank but with the same length of service.

Maintaining that “the comparison sought to be made by the petitioners is between comparable and non-comparable and between apples and oranges”, the Centre had urged the top court to dismiss the petition.

“This pair (‘same rank’ and ‘same length of service’) cannot be impaired. One cannot take only the same rank and ignore the length of service and similarly one cannot merely take the length of service. It is important to highlight that the expression “same” appears twice as “same rank” and “same length of service”. By any stretch of imagination, it cannot be read as the same rank, different length of service or same length of service on different ranks,” it had submitted.