Pinnacle Court upholds union’s decision on OROP for armed forces

16-03-2022

The top court today upheld the union government’s decision on OROP for armed forces and delivered that it doesn’t find any constitutional significance in the way in which it is being presented.

The Three judge bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud which gone through the “principles governing pensions and cut-off dates” noted that “there is  not a law mandate that pensioners who held the constant rank should be given the same amount of pension” and that “the varying benefits that may be applicable to certain personnel which would also impact the pension payable need not be equalised with the rest of the personnel”.

The bench has meanwhile ordered that the re-fixation process should be as per the policy must be brought out with effect from July 1, 2019 and the arrears must be delivered to the pensioners in the time period of three months.

Striking down the argument, the bench said that “OROP definition is not arbitrary”. The bench further said that the definition of the One Rank One Pension is equally implied to all pensioners irrespective of the retirement date.

The apex court delivered a petition filed by the Ex-servicemen community requesting the implementation of the One Rank One Pension as suggested by the Bhagat Singh Koshyari Committee with an systematic annual increment, rather  than the present policy of time duration review for one time in every five years.

The judgement came on a petition which was made by the Indian Ex-servicemen Movement through the  lawyer Balaji Srinivasan against the Union’s method of One Rank One Pension.

The Supreme Court today finally said that whatever it decides, it's on methodology and not on numbers.