No point revising One Rank, One Pension scheme, Centre tells Supreme Court: Govt says move will be burden on exchequer
The Government of India on Friday told the Supreme Court that there will be no revisions as of now to the One Rank, One Pension (OROP) scheme. In that case Centre should in one stroke of its pen raise the retiring age of all Armed Forces rank to 60 years and also do away with the Army Act, the Air Force Act and the Navy Act. All these Forces can be covered by the existing Central Armed Police Force Act.
The demand for OROP will be over and the politicians will not have to feel ashamed of having gone back on the solemn promise they made inside the two houses of the Parliament.
The babus too can feel happy that they have saved the country of millions of rupees and also for having put the Armed Forces in their proper place. The Courts can feel happy that there will be no more litigations connected with OROP.
The Government of India on Friday told the Supreme Court that there will be no revisions, as of now, to the One Rank, One Pension (OROP) scheme. Centre said that it has already decided on the formula for OROP and nothing much can be done as it would lead to financial implications. The Supreme Court has given four weeks to the government to submit reply to petitioners’ PIL.
The government response came in reaction to a petition filed by the an association of ex-servicemen in the Supreme Court. The petitioners have said that the OROP scheme implemented by the government is not exactly according to the recommendations of the Koshiyari Committee.
The Narendra Modi government had announced the One Rank One Pension scheme for the ex-servicemen in September 2015. It calls for payment of a uniform pension to the Armed Forces personnel retiring in the same rank with the same length of service, regardless of their date of retirement.
The Centre has also rejected the possibility any annual benefit to the ex-armymen stating the doing so would further “burden the exchequer”.
The government said that it won’t be reconsidering reducing the time for periodical revisions to the scheme stating that it had already gone out of its way to dole out benefits for the retired officers. Meanwhile, the judiciary said that since OROP is a policy decision, it can’t do much in the case.
One of the petitioners, Colonel Kirit Joshipura spoke to CNN-News18 to express his disappointment over the government’s response and said that the government should call the petitioners for talks otherwise they would resort to protests at Jantar Mantar in Delhi. He said that even during the UPA regime, neither Sonia Gandhi nor Rahul Gandhi bothered to listen to their demands.
Whereas, Lt Gen Raj Kadyan told CNN News18, that out of the 8,000 cr rupees sanctioned by former defence minister Manohar Parrikar, only about 2,800 cr is left to be allocated and the government should ensure that the amount is sanctioned since the bulk of it has already been disbursed.
He also condemned the petitioners’ decision to move to the Supreme Court stating that this will leave the government with no choice but to forcefully abide by the court’s judgement in the case and hence the move was “ill-thought-out”.
The Armed Forces have always been doing their duty of protecting the Country and the democracy. They take oath to protect the Constitution with their life. Let the Supreme Court who to are the protectors of the Constitution deliver justice, the Forces will abide by it. The delivery should be timely.
