Some Issues To Remember About OROP and Pension Fixations In 7CPC

All veterans are aware that there are a number of litigations on pensionary matters presently pending in AFTs, Hon'ble High Courts and the Hon'ble Supreme Court. Considering the large numbers involved, it would be futile even to attempt to list them all.

However, this blog-post was felt necessary after having come across some rather alarming and disturbing online posts by commentators who have been quite central to online debate on these matters, starting right from the era of Rank Pay litigation.

More than the wording of these online comments, it is the sentiment and reasoning underlying the posts that give rise to a feeling of unease. These issues affect a large number of ESM, so hubris on account of one's own views and/or of a rather vested approach of being guided by sanctity of pensionary awards of only a select class, can't contribute towards generating awareness or suggesting remedies in consultative fashion for a resolution.

Most aspects have already been touched upon in the past. But now, as the OROP litigation moves towards a decisive phase, it could, perhaps, be useful to not lose sight of some features of the complex issue as listed in this brief and far from comprehensive list. Following the links provided, it may be possible to arrive at a more complete picture rather than through brief interactions on social-media:

• The tell tale signatures of disadvantages in OROP to some rank-QS combinations need to be looked at analytically👉 in this blog post 

• How the stress on just "One Rank" in OROP and ignoring the even more crtical need of a "notional progression" for OROP fixation can cause non-redressal of anomalous fixations for some QS-rank combinations 👉 as outlined here. 

• There may be a need to examine how truthful and rational the methodology of OROP fixation was even in terms of using the "average of minimum and maximum" rather than the maximum value of pension of a QS-rank combination in 2013 and to try to arrive at an understanding of the glaring gaps that show up in graphical data 👉 shown in this blog-post. 

• Equally important is a need for esteemed interlocuters to re-examine their apparent endorsements of what some notings on files seem to assert while justifying the non-revision of OROP. The actual situation indicates those assertions could have less than valid application in many cases 👉 as explained here.

 

The Case For Lt Col Pension For Old Veterans Who Retired As Major (updated with emphasis)

(Readers are requested to consider using the “share buttons” at the end of this and other blog-posts in case they feel sharing of the contents could be of interest to others affected. Contents of the post may change in case of new developments or articulation of others’ views) 

If it had not been for a chance viewing of another blog some time ago, with a blog-post in it on a different topic and some comments/replies, this particular development would have been missed altogether.

The development is of the negative kind. Some may say that the curse of 16 December 2004 has struck again. But, before those affected give up on the matter as a lost cause, they could consider reviewing some past  opinions on this specific  issue and matters intimately related to it. Perhaps, what is required is a wider point of view rather than a narrow focus on just one rank.

The development relates to a petition filed by veterans who had retired in the rank of Major with more than 20 years of service before that date. The petition was dismissed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India. The petition had sought parity of the petitioners' pension with pension of Lt Col veterans who retired after 16 Dec 2004 with the same QS as the petitioners.

A copy of the judgement can be viewed on the website of the Hon'ble Supreme Court with the link placed at the end of this blog-post.

It is not known what the precise submissions of the petitioners were. Text of the judgement states the petition to be,"...for grant of pensionary and other benefits at par with the benefits which accrue as a consequence of the communication dated 21 December 2004 of the Government of India in the Ministry of Defence" and, I quote again, "....to grant pension equal to the pension of Lt. Col. by applying the principle of “equal pension for equal work” to the petitioners under the provisions of Constitution of India".

The "communication" referred to is, most probably, the one that contained the sanction for implementing, with effect from 16 December 2004, Phase-I recommendations of AV Singh Committee. In previous tribunal orders and court judgements, policy letters of year 2005 had been mentioned as the ones implementing said recommendations retrospectively from 16 Dec 2004. Till such documents are accessed, it would be imprudent to hold forth on the timeline of that "implementation".

The text of the judgement, quoted above, poses a few questions:

• Did sanction for implementing phase-I recommendations of AV Singh Committee specifically mention that older pensioners in time-bound ranks would not be entitled to parity of their pensions with those fixed for officers retiring after 16 December 2004 with the same type of commission and equal service?

• Did the petition actually seek "benefits" flowing out of the letter implementing recommendations of AVS Committee wef 16 Dec 2004 or did it seek parity with benefits of the post 16 Dec 2004 rank of Lt Col? 

The judgement goes on further to state, "The petitioners are former personnel of the Indian Army who retired prior to 16 December 2004. Since the orders of the Union of India have taken effect from 16 December 2004, ex facie, they have no application to the petitioners". The most important issue that arises is, the very fact that the GOI orders did not apply to pre 16 Dec 2004 retirees is what constitutes discrimination against the older retirees, especially when their deferred wage (pension) suffers in terms of parity and equity as compared to post 16 Dec 2004 retirees given the benefit of a higher time-bound rank from that arbitrarily fixed cut-off date. The following issues can be considered:

• Is it a matter of "application" per se? Did the petitioners seek that they be promoted retrospectively as per the 2004 order and that too at stages of their former career corresponding to lower QS for promotion than they had actually been promoted at and to be paid arrears on account of enhanced pay and earlier promotions for the years they had been service?

• Wasn’t  their petition meant to seek parity of their deferred wage, to be paid in the period after 16 Dec 2004 with the deferred wage of similarly placed Officers who retired after 16 Dec 2004?

• The petitioners had served for 20 years or more as commissioned Officers. Their pension is a deferred wage based on the service they had rendered which can truly be measured only by consideration of their cadre, nature of commission and their qualifying service combined. Their ranks did not have the same attributes after 16 Dec 2004 and, therefore, can the rank be used as measure of entitlement to the deferred wage after 16 Dec 2004 or for establishing parity thereof?

• Can the quantum of their entitlement of their deferred wage vary depending on whether they retired before or after 16 Dec 2004 and can they be given a deferred wage after 16 Dec 2004 which is lower than that of similarly placed Officers retiring with the same QS in a time-bound rank with changed attributes post 16 Dec 2004?

Most of these issues have been touched upon in the past. Please see the blog-post linked to at the end of this post. But, briefly, there is an urgent need for all informed interlocutors on these matters to consider there are interconnected issues involved, not just the pension of veterans in Major rank. Some important aspects of the topic, that could be given a thought for the future course of this issue, are as follows:

* This may be highlighted once again, that regardless of the specific contents of the petition in question, the principle of parity of pensions for older Maj retirees would have been applicable from whatever retrospective date the recommendations of AV Singh Committee had been implemented. For this pension parity issue, the specificity of that date is immaterial except for the consideration that a disparity exists across the date between pensions of two veterans who had the same type of Commission and had the same QS and retired in time-bound ranks.

* However, the selection of the date becomes much more relevant for all the Officers who were in service on the specific date the Government formed the Committee in 2001 when their status got official recognition as members of a uniform group of similarly placed Officers, all suffering from stagnation in their cadre. Is it not true that the benefit of relief from stagnation was not equally applied when the date of implementation, of recommendations of the Committee, was chosen as 16 Dec 2004? 

* Consider the case of a serving Major with 13 years of service in 2001, when the Committee was formed in recognition of the fact that the serving Major formed part of a homogeneous group suffering from career stagnation. He had to wait till 16 Dec 2004 to pick up the new time bound rank of Lt Col when he attained a QS of 16 years, stagnating for 3 years in the pay-scale without getting the higher pay and allowances, whereas his junior with just 13 years of service as on 16 Dec 2004 picked up the same rank without any delay, suffering no stagnation in the process.

 

* Did these Officers, who were in service at the time of formation of AV Singh Committee in 2001, receive equitable adjustment of their ranks, in-service pay and/allowances as a result of the implementation of AV Singh Committee recommendations  even if they continued to serve beyond 16 Dec 2004? But if the Officers serving in 2001 had the bad luck to retire before 16 Dec 2004, then they missed even parity in terms of pension vis-a-vis Officers with the same type of Commission and equal QS retiring after 16 Dec 2004. 

* The act of selection of 16 Dec 2004 as the date for implementing phase-I recommendations of AVS Committee was, by itself, discriminatory. The act of selection of that date discriminated not only against many Officer veterans who had been in service when the committee was formed but superannuated before the implementation date but it (the selection of that date) also discriminated against Officers who continued to serve beyond that date. In-service earnings (pay and allowances) of both these sub-sets suffered disparities on account of just selection of that date. The sub-set of Officers who retired prior to date of implementation lost out in terms of parity of their pension as well.

* Regardless of the above, if pension is a deferred wage and the only rational measure of service rendered in the case of time-bound ranks are the type of commission and length of service, then, for equitable parity, pensions for time-bound ranks with  the same type of commission and qualifying service would need to be the same across that date for an equitable and fair resolution. Let us not. forget, ranks are not constant standards across the cut-off date and do not serve as a just measure for ensuring parity of deferred wages as a pre 16 Dec 2004 Major or Lt Col rank is not the same as the post 16 Dec 2004 Major or Lt Col rank. The only reliable and logical basis for comparing service rendered, in the case of time-bound ranks, is the type of commission and the QS of retirees before and after the cut off date.

To put the whole matter in a nutshell, unless the act of selecting 16 Dec 2004, as the date of implementation of Phase I recommendations of AV Singh Committee, is established as being arbitrary and discriminatory, justice in the matter will continue to elude those discriminated against.

Links to Connected Material: (Please click/tap to access 👉): 

 ➡️    Pension Anomaly Resulting From AVS-I

 ➡️   Order of Hon'ble Supreme Court On Writ Petition (Civil) 942/2019

 ➡️   Retirement Rank vis-a-vis Rank For Pension

7 CPC Concordance Tables And Their Effect On Pay Parity Status: Lt Col

(Updated): This has been elaborated upon in very many blog posts, on this blog and else where. The following annotations made on the 7CPC concordance table for Lt Col are an attempt to illustrate how the absence of a direct co-relation between Notional Pay and QS makes an equitable parity impossible between pensions of older retirees and pensions of those retiring after 01 Jan 2016. This is particularly significant for ranks that are attained on time-bound basis viz., Lt to Col (TS) at present.

{Edit: These issues have become even more relevant now in view of some documents, obtained through RTI by an eminent blogger and posted by him online, in which an assertion has been made by CGDA that with the implementation of 7CPC, to quote the document, "The notional pay formula brings all past pensioners to current rates, almost as if they were serving under VIIth CPC". In the case of Officer veterans, who retired before 31 Dec 2004, in ranks which are nowadays time-bound, the veracity of such assertions does need a circumspect examination. They may well have just grounds to "clamour for" a relook at the whole matter of pension fixations under OROP and now 7CPC}

 Essentially, why the method of using formulas for notional pay between successive pay commissions can’t deliver on principle of “equal remuneration for equal work” is that it does not normalise notional pay across CPCs by not keeping in view how fast, in terms of QS, a Lt Col serving or retiring past 01 Jan 2016 reaches an increment stage in the 7CPC matrix compared to a pre December 2004 Lt Col retiree.

This becomes very clear in the case of Lt Col(TS) retiree of pre 16 Dec 2004 era and Lt Col of VI CPC and Lt Col of VII CPC. All the three are time-bound ranks. What the concordance table implies, in effect, is that if an Officer retired in rank of Lt Col(TS) after serving for around 30 years in regime of 4 CPC, or about 25 years during regime of V CPC, then the notional pay of those Lt Col veterans would be equal to pay of a Lt Col with about 16 years of service, now also a time-bound rank, during regimes of VI and VII CPC.

In other words, with the Concordance Tables, an Officer who retired during period of 5 CPC as Lt Col (TS) in November 2004 or earlier with a service of 28 to 29 years, would have his 7 CPC notional pay fixed from 01 Jan 2016 equivalent to the pay of a Lt Col in January 2016 having a qualifying service of approximately 16 to 17 years, in spite of both being time-bound ranks.

The concordance table and notional pay method do not even begin to touch upon the issue of how notional pay of a Lt Col of IV and V CPC with more than 26 years of service, based on parity and equity principles cited in VII CPC report, would in fact need to have his “notional pay” fixed at par with a Col (TS) of VI and VII CPC with equal service. {Edit: But in light of very recent legal developments, it may be in order to stop seeking pension parity with pension of a specific "rank". Ranks, as mentioned previously, are not a "constant" construct. They alone can't provide a true measure of entitlement of a deferred wage or provide a basis of parity for time-bound ranks. Parity of pension for Officers of a specific type of commission who retired in time-bound ranks of their era of service has to be based on broad principles cited in the pay commission report itself and on constant, defining measures of service rendered by such veteran officers in the past viz., the type of their commission and their QS in their time-bound rank}

In the present case, parity is not maintained even in the same rank based on years of service.

Formulas applied from one pay commission to the next one can lead to a reasonably rational fixation of the 7 CPC notional pay for most cases. But in the case of armed forces veteran officers who had retired prior to 31 Dec 2004, unless another formula is applied for the pay-rank-QS combination existing prior to 16 Dec 2004 and the same combination post that date, this notional pay fixed by this manner of merely using formulas for pay from one pay commission to the next will always fall well short of what an equitable notional progression would have brought about as suggested in (please click to access —->) this table.

A Few Queries On Concordance Tables For Pensioners In Rank Of Major

It has been nearly 21 months since some issues were raised in the previous blog-post, with the example of the rank of Lt Col, as to how the concept of notional pay would need to be applied for those who had retired prior to 01 Jan 2006, especially many of those armed forces officers who had retired prior to implementation date of phase-I recommendations of AV Singh Committee. 

True to expectations, the Concordance Tables, that were finally released about four months ago, raised a few doubts as to whether the tables had approached the matter from point of view of resolving existing anomalies and that of ensuring parities between pensions of older and current pensioners, a principle that was strongly endorsed by VII CPC itself. Aspects of fairness and equity thus continue to remain an issue. 

What may appear to be infirmities or incongruities, leading to possible apprehensions of an award not being fully equitable, can best be examined in concordance tables applicable to pensioners in armed forces officer ranks which are now time-bound. The most significant example would be Concordance Tables for the ranks of Major, Lt Col(TS) and Lt Col. An extract of Concordance Table for the rank of Major is placed as follows: {The full set of tables is viewable on DESW PCDA web-site through this link }

The first example is the Concordance Table for the rank of Major. 

The first thing for pre 2006 (I'll repeat here, 2006) Major retirees to note is that the maximum notional pay of Rs. 118100/- in the last column should, by all logic, correspond to the 7CPC pay of a Major with about 25 years of QS, even though no Officer with that QS would be in the rank of Major nowadays. 

That means the highest pay of 14850/-+975/- of a Major retiree in the period 01-01-1996 to 31 Dec 2005 corresponds to the equivalent 2016 notional pay of 101900/-, which when referring to the matrix should be the pay of a Major of 2016 having a QS of about 20 years. Now those Major retirees of the period 01-01-1996 to 31 Dec 2005 who were drawing a basic pay of 14850+975 at the time of retirement can compare their own QS at retirement with the figure of 19 ~ 20 years at which their fixed "notional pay" of 101900/- would be earned by someone serving/retiring as Major in 2016 or later.

The question arises whether or not first three columns of basic pay (01/01/86 to 31/12/95, 01/01/96 to 31/12/2005 and 01/01/2006 to 31/12/2015) as well as the fourth column for "pay range from 01/01/2006 to 31/12/2015, have attempted to take into cognizance the equivalence of qualifying service rendered by retirees in that time-bound rank in the three distinct time-frames mentioned above. At first glance, it does not appear to be the case. 

At all stages of the concordance table, has any consideration been applied to qualifying service of a Major who retired in the period 01/01/1996 to 31/12/2015 vis-a-vis the qualifying service of the Major drawing that so called "notional/equivalent" pay for the period 01/01/2006 to 31/12/2015? The table, with no reference to qualifying service, equates the starting pay of Major with a service of 11 years at the beginning of the scale for the period 01/01/96 to 31/12/2005 with the starting pay of Major with a service of approximately 6 years for the period 01/01/2006 to 31/12/2015.  

The table also does not appear to provide for the fact that a Major from the period 01/01/2006 to 31/Dec/2015 would be in the pay-band of Lt Col starting at a QS of app 13 years on time-bound basis and that the parity based equivalence of the older Maj Pensioner from the period 01/01/1996 to 31/12/1995 would be the corresponding pay of Lt Col with equivalent service in period 01/01/2006 to 31/12/2015.

Therefore the title  "Corresponding Level wef 01/01/2016" at top of the table is based on the rather ambiguous premise that any value in any particular column "corresponds" to juxtaposed values in the same rows in other columns. It is like saying 5 apples of 1996-2005 correspond to 8.6 oranges of 2006-2015.

The relevance of the argument for basing pension equivalence/parity, in the case of ranks which are time-bound, on rational notions, as against accountancy tables, can be discerned in logic advanced in this old blog post.

More to follow on tables applicable to Lt Col (TS) and Lt Col.

The Notional Pay Based VII CPC Pension Formulation : Lt Col And Equivalent Ranks

It is quite possible that theorizing on outcomes, based on bare assumptions, can lead to grossly inaccurate and misleading views on how re-formulation of VII CPC pensions would shape up.

The increment based formulation as recommended by VII CPC, now having been modified to a calculation based on notional pays in successive pay commissions, could resolve a lot of anomalies related to OROP provided it is implemented keeping firmly in view how OROP and the VII CPC matrix need to form part of a whole.

The scope of this blog post is restricted to the retirees in rank of Lt Col for the sake of simplicity. The intention is to illustrate how the qualifying service of a retiree, a concept central to OROP, needs to be taken into account during any exercise involving fixation of pensions in the VII CPC matrix.

Some key issues arise :

• Notional pay of most VI CPC Lt Col retirees as determined by the notional pay method will, in all probability will be in order as no major changes have taken place between Vi and VII CPCs in terms of service such as service required for promotions, rank structure etc.  

• Lt Cols who retired before 01 Jan 2006, especially those who retired prior to implementation of AV Singh Committee (Dec 2004), are likely to have more qualifying service than those who retired after 01 Jan 2006 and as a consequence have less pension for the same qualifying service applicable in the case of a Lt Col retiring after implementation of VII CPC. All affected know Lt Col rank became applicable on time-bound basis at a qualifying service of 13 years with effect from 16 Dec 2004.

• For fixing the VII CPC notional pay of pre 01 Jan 06 Lt Col retirees, some mechanism may have to be found to make sure their VII CPC notional pay finally arrived at should not be less than the VII CPC notional pay of a VI CPC Lt Col retiree with equal qualifying service.

• Then, there is the old issue of the need of parity of pensions of older Lt Col retirees with pensions of Col(TS) with equal qualifying service, if they had put in a service of 26 years or more.

Full clarity will emerge only when detailed instructions are issued on re-formulation of VII CPC pensions of armed forces veterans. The following table is meant to illustrate how the re-formulation should proceed :

{Update: With the recent release of orders for calculating "Notional Pay", a detailed revision of this blog-post has become necessary. An update will follow}

Pension Fixation Based On Notional Progression (Cont'd) : OROP

To be sure, this is merely a re-hash of issues covered on this blog, on other web-sites and blogs, in chat forums, in group e_mails or bars at clubs and institutes.

Not that drawing arrow-marks for marking out a logical pension progression is expected to result in an overnight re-framing of pension awards. But, on the lines of progression path for 7 CPC pension fixation in the previous post, here is the same concept applied to one of the tables (the first one) issued for implementing OROP.

{Edit}: A little clarification appears in order. The notional progression as suggested in the table needs to be governed by some constraints. 

Notional pay, hence pension, of an older retiree in a certain rank must progress to the level suggested in the table provided currently serving Officers in the older retirees' cadre and with the same type of commission progress on basis of time, i.e. length of service alone, to the higher level as shown.

The progression would, by and large, be applicable up to the rank of Major in most types of commission. But progression to the notional level of current level of Lt Col at service of 13 years may exclude those types of commissions with which Officers do not currently progress automatically to rank of Lt Col at a service of 13 years.

Similarly, notional progression to pay, hence pension, of Col(TS) at a QS of 26 years, as suggested in the table, would be justified for those types of commission with which Officers currently get the rank of Col(TS) after completing a service of 26 years.

Some Notions Of Progression For Pension Fixation

Some time ago, I had come across a reference to "notional fixation" in pay-bands applicable to Major for determining the OROP pensions of older pensioners in Major rank, considering no one retires in Major rank anymore due to speedier time-bound promotions. Similar concerns apply in the case of fixation of 7 CPC pensions.

The concept of "notional fixation" was excellent but the rider about restricting the "progression" to a Major's pay-band didn't appeal so much. I had given my opinion, for what it was worth, in a previous blog-post.

To repeat myself, when it comes to time-bound ranks, pension parity needs to be based firstly on the nature of enrolment/commission and the cadre, then on "time" i.e. qualifying service and only after that on the "rank" which is not a constant measure of service rendered in the case of time-bound ranks. Attributes of time bound ranks have changed over the years. In their case, the true measure of service rendered is, well, the service rendered, in number of years. Here's a link to this concept. Again, it applies to 7 CPC as much as OROP.

While working on the co-relationship of qualifying service with stage and level numbers of the 7 CPC Matrix in the previous blog post, it became apparent that the "notional progression" can't be a uni-directional one, leading vertically downwards in the same pay-band.

Such a "notion" budgets for imaginary increments but not the enhancements in grade pay that automatically come with time in reality. So, for a correct "notional progression", the progression has to be downwards and sideways based on what actually happens to those currently serving.

The following example indicates the manner of progression of pay for time-bound ranks which provides a rational basis for fixing 7 CPC pensions of older pensioners.

A critical and basic requirement for the validity of such a downward-sideways progression is, if the older pensioner had been in service after 16 Dec 2004, would he or would he not have been eligible, based on the QS in the extreme left column, for time-based progression to the next higher level shown in the progression path in the table. If the answer to that is in the affirmative, then fixing his pension in the lower pay-band would be a straight-forward case of discrimination.

Even though implementation of 7 CPC pay fixation is reportedly being held in abeyance, the principles of pension parity, as illustrated in the following table, would still be valid regardless of any enhancements in pay levels that might come about):

{Edit}: A little clarification appears in order. The notional progression as suggested in the table needs to be governed by some constraints. 

Notional pay, hence pension, of an older retiree in a certain rank must progress to the level suggested in the table provided currently serving Officers in the older retirees' cadre and with the same type of commission progress on basis of time, i.e. length of service alone, to the higher level as shown.

The progression would, by and large, be applicable up to the rank of Major in most types of commission. But progression to the notional level of current level of Lt Col at service of 13 years may exclude those types of commissions with which Officers do not currently progress automatically to rank of Lt Col at a service of 13 years.

Similarly, notional progression to pay, hence pension, of Col(TS) at a QS of 26 years, as suggested in the table, would be justified for those types of commission with which Officers currently get the rank of Col(TS) after completing a service of 26 years.