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”.
What is not very clear at present is whether or not
the petition also sought to get a resolution of other glaring anomalies of OROP
implementation. It would also not be wise to speculate whether all dimensions
of parity and equity in OROP implementation would be taken into account by the
Hon’ble Supreme Court if these did not form part of the Petition.
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 😶}
