What follows would be a repeat of several ideas
recorded on the matter in the past. But considering the stage of finality
reached in litigation in the matter, now that the petition has finally been
represented, with a truly commendable and heroic effort on part of the
petitioners, the judgment having been reserved by the Hon’ble Supreme Court, it
may not hurt to put on record a brief gist as it would not be out of place for
armed forces veterans in all ranks to have some yardsticks for the outcome they
expect.
One main issue with the coverage of the case on social
media or blogs has been the lack of full details of all the issues sought to be
addressed in the petition. The broad points are known, of course, that:
- Implementation of OROP for older retirees should have been from the same year (in year 2013 or 2014) that the pensions of current retirees with the same rank and the same years of service had been taken into account.
- OROP for older retirees should have been fixed at
the maximum pension of retirees with the same rank and same years of
service (2013 or 2014) and not at the average of minimum and maximum
of pensions.
- Revision of OROP should have been done annually and
not at intervals of five years.
- The frequently quoted phrase that OROP should not be
“One Rank Many Pensions”.
In order to restrict any view on the subject to manageable dimensions, it may be best to take the example of a smaller subset of the veteran pensioners where uniform concepts can be applied in respect of the degree of relief that could be justifiably anticipated.
OROP for Officer veterans can be a case in point.
Here, a review of the concept of equity and parity is essential. The OROP abbreviation needs an application of mind. The implication of “One Rank”, that is talked and written about so much, needs to be understood fully. I had mentioned this in previous posts, in Tweets as well as in direct messages. It may be useful to highlight the same briefly even as we wait for the judgment.
Essentially, OROP needs to deliver parity between deferred wage of older ESM pensioners with the deferred wage of service personnel who have rendered the same amount of service and retired in a benchmark/base year (presently the year 2013).
That would sync with the well established concept of “Equal Remuneration For Equal Work”. However, there is a need for rationally establishing logical parameters that would define “same amount of service” and “equal work”.
“One Rank” when combined with “Equal Service (in years)” is a very reasonable basis for defining “Same Service” or “Equal Work” and for forming a basis for delivering pension parity in most cases.
In the case of a Col (select), for example, the
common parameters would be:
- The type of commission (eg Regular
Commission).
- The categorisation for pensions conventionally
followed based on Arm/Branch/Service [such as in the common table
for "Regular Commissioned Officers Of Army And Equivalent Ranks In
Navy And Air Force (Other Than Officers Of AMC/ADC/RVC, EC/SSC, MNS)].
- The fact of having been promoted to select rank of Col.
- The qualifying service in number of years.
In other words, OROP of a Col(select) who retired
with 25 years of service before the “benchmark/base year” (presently 2013) date of implementation viz., 01 Jul 2014, needs to be equal to the pension (the highest and not the average, as per the
petition) drawn by a Col (select) with equal service retiring in the benchmark
year. The same logic would appear to hold for higher selection based Officer
ranks of Brigadier, Maj Gen and Lt Gen.
Therefore, as all select Officer ranks in the benchmark/base year (presently 2013) have a one-to-one equivalence with select ranks of veteran Officers who had retired prior to the benchmark year, there would not be much of a problem in fixing OROP for these veteran Officers.
The problem arises, and it is a real one, when OROP is considered for ranks of Lt Col, Maj, Capt. These are now time-bound ranks and as these ranks are obtained on the basis of qualifying service and not by the common factor of promotion by selection, the actual "Rank" has to take a backseat relative to other factors required for determining what constitutes "equal work" or "same service".
Attributes of time-bound Officer ranks have changed over time. The concept has found resonance in several sections of the blogosphere that a "Major" rank of yesteryear is not the same as the "Major" rank of 2013. There was a time Major rank would be attained at a service of 14 years. In the benchmark/base year (presently 2013), Major rank is attained at a QS of 6 years. In the benchmark year Officers progress on time-bound basis to rank of Lt Col on completing a service of 11 years. How can the OROP of older pensioners in that old rank of "Major" be fixed based on "One Rank"? How can these two Major ranks, with different attributes, be considered "One Rank"? These are disparate in terms of their attributes.
The issue of "same or equal service" can't be addressed by spellings of the rank alone. The equivalence of two measures of a commodity can't be established if these are weighed on two different scales which both display the weight as "5" if the first measure is weighed in a scale that reads in Pounds Avoirdupois and the second one on a scale that reads in Kilograms.
Some far from enlightened reasoning has surfaced in recorded "wisdom", as reflected in official correspondence/Minutes of Meetings obtained through RTI by veterans actively engaged on ESM issues. In some circles, it has been actually stated that benefits in terms of enhanced remuneration resulting from cadre restructuring need not be passed on to older retirees.
Just let us consider this for a moment, if an Officer with a regular commission retired in a time-bound rank at a QS of 20 years, in benchmark year of 2013, with a pension of Rs.31305/-, then would there be any justification in fixing the pension at Rs.21530/- of an older, pre Dec 2004, Officer veteran, with a regular commission, who also retired in a time-bound rank at a QS of 20 years? Yet, OROP has been fixed in just that fashion, ignoring the "same service" of both veterans as well as completely disregarding the fact that if the former retired in the old rank of Major and the latter in the new time-bound rank of Lt Col, that forms no justifiable basis for fixing the OROP at such different levels.
The same considerations apply to OROP for older pensioners in rank of Lt Col who had completed 26 years of service. Nowadays, as in the base year of 2013, officers progress on time bound basis to rank of Col(TS).
I have seen this question repeated across several online discussions, blogs and twitter accounts, in different forms, and fully understand the relevance as to the pension of which Major retiree of base year 2013 with service with QS more than 20 years was used for determining OROP of older Maj pensioners? Why were these Maj retirees of 2013 not Lt Col? The same applies to pensions of Lt Col with more than 26 years of service.
That is why, the following blog posts may still be relevant:
- The need to recognise that parity of pensions in OROP can not be limited by the words "One Rank" as these may not really be applicable to time bound ranks. ➡ https://bit.ly/3nfEvv0
- For veterans in time-bound Officer ranks, there is a need for notionally progressing to a level of remuneration based on the distinct defining parameters that define the quantum of Service they have rendered, viz., the nature of their Commission, the grouping associated with pension fixation and their QS at retirement. Rank can only be a secondary determinant of OROP in their case. ➡ https://bit.ly/3aXotAi
Whether or not these issues found a place in the petition or will receive a consideration by Hon'ble Supreme Court would only be revealed when the judgment is available
{Addendum: They didn’t 😶}
