Supreme court orders to release OROP arrears in a single instalment by March 15
On February 27, 2023, the Supreme Court expressed its annoyance toward the Ministry of Defence for passing a unilateral notification of delaying payments to army pensioners under the OROP scheme (One Rank One Pension). The matter was presented before the Supreme Court bench headed by the Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud including two other judges named Justice PS Narasimha and Justice JB Pardiwala. During the hearing, the Court ordered the Ministry of Defence to submit a personal affidavit explaining the reason to take a ‘unilateral’ decision. In order to seek an explanation from the secretary of the Ministry of defence, the Supreme Court said that “Here, you are not fighting an enemy. You are going on a war against the rule of law. You cannot do this…sanctity of the judicial process has to be maintained.” In this context, the government’s spokesperson ordered the CGDA (Controller General Defence Accounts) to release OROP arrears in a single instalment and all outstanding arrears to be paid to ex-servicemen by 15 March 2023.
The top Court in the previous hearing of the case asked the Central Government to pay out the arrears by March 15, 2023. The payment date was extended by the Ministry to pay arrears in four equal half-yearly instalments. While hearing the case on 27th February, the Supreme Court said that “We give you an extension till 15th of March 2023. Now, in the face of our order of 9th of January 2023, how can you issue a communication of 20th January that you will pay the arrears in half-yearly instalments? Let the secretary of defence approach the court and tell us why we should not take an action against him.” In this context, the Additional Solicitor General, appearing for the Union of India, Venkataramanan submitted, “Out of 22 lakh pensioners, we have already given 8 lakh pensioners, post your order, around 2500 crores. Our instructions are that by 31st March, family pensioners we want to make a one-time settlement- we’ll pay the arrears one time. For the rest of the pensioners, we need to make it in standard payments.”
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Hearing this, Senior Advocate Huzefa Ahmadi (appearing for army personnel) argued that “Since the petition was instituted, nearly four lakh pensioners have died awaiting to receive their due. The payments were supposed to be made in 2019 and we are now in 2023. Ans look at the gall of the officer issuing this communication. He arrogated to himself the power to modify the judgment of this Court. This is extremely telling,” The top Court further said Venkataramanan that “We have been extending time since March 2022. Tell the secretary that we are going to take action against him for this letter on January 20. Either he withdraws the January 20 communication, or we issue a contempt notice. There cannot be a defence to such a communication.” The bench further listed the matter after Holi and asked for an affidavit from the secretary of defence Ministry for their unilateral decision of extending the pay of OROP arrears.
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