The Supreme Court came down heavily on the Centre recently for failing to take any decision for years on the pension payable to retired regular captains of the Army in accordance with the One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme. A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and R Mahadevan, in utter unhappiness and exasperation, gave one last opportunity to the Centre till November 14, for resolving the anomalies with regard to the pension of such retired officers under the scheme.
OROP is aimed to bring all retired personnel in the armed forces at par with the service personnel in terms of pay, as per their respective scales, with yearly revision. Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhatti said, six anomalies have been pointed out by the Kochi bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT), which needs to be rectified, but the government is yet to take a stand in the matter.
The issue of OROP has been dragging on since the past 51 years. Starting from the government led by late Indira Gandhi in 1973, till the one being led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2024, the Government of India, irrespective of the party in power, has been playing with the honour and dignity of the ex-servicemen and their families. It’s been half-a-century and yet no government till date could give a clear decision on implementing OROP in its totality and still asking for time in the court!!!!!
The demand is simple - bring pay parity of ex-servicemen with that of regular servicemen. The irony is, former PM Indira Gandhi, who was given an unprecedented victory against Pakistan by the Indian army in 1971 war, by reducing the pension of poor sepoys and non-commissioned officers from 70% to 50% and raising the same of the bureaucrats, from 30% to 50%.
For civilians working in government service, from peon to a cabinet secretary, retirement age is up to 60 years of age. But, what public may not know that over 99% soldiers of all ranks, and lower ranking officers serving in the armed forces, including officers in the defense are retired at much early age and service starting from 35 to 40 years for jawans below the officer’s rank by 54/56 years for officers, when the need of their service is at its peak.
In 1986, Rajiv Gandhi led Congress (I) decided to implement Rank Pay, which reduced basic pay from Captain to Brigadier and their equivalent in the Air Force and the navy, relative to basic pay scales of civilian and police officers.
In 2008, PM Manmohan Singh created asymmetry by deciding to discard the concept of Rank Pay. In its place, it introduced Grade pay, and Pay bands, which did not address asymmetries caused by ‘rank pay’. Again debasing of armed forces ranks was accompanied by a decision in 2008 to create hundreds of new posts of secretaries, Director General of Police (DGP) at the apex pay grade level to ensure that all civilian and police officers, including defence civilian officers, retire at the highest pay grade with the apex pay grade pensions which means approving One Rank One Pay (OROP) to all, but not the armed forces.
The UPA government headed by Manmohan Singh struck another blow by awarding Non Functional Upgradation (NFU) which allowed all the Civil servants to go to the higher scale, if the vacancies are not available for their further promotion at the higher level.
Only defence services were deprived on both these two accounts, (OROP and NFU). The UPA Government, in 2011, appointed Koshiyari Committee, which unanimously found merit in OROP and strongly recommended its implementation. Before, 2013 General Election, Congress hurriedly passed it allotting a paltry sum of Rs 500 crore, which was far shorter than the required amount.
Prior to 2013 Lok Sabha election, BJP Prime Ministerial candidate and incumbent PM, Narendra Modi at a large election rally, in Rewari, Haryana, with General V K Singh, former Chief of Army Staff standing by his side, in the presence of tens of thousands Ex-Servicemen, declared that he will implement OROP, if elected.
On becoming the PM, most memorably on Diwali, at Siachen Glacier, in 2014, he told soldiers “It was in my destiny that One Rank One pension has been fulfilled”.
After one year of expectation, Modi controversially declared that the term OROP still needed to be defined!!! Since then, the issue has not been fully resolved.
Since proper implementation is hanging fire, no political party is showing any interest in favour of the ex-servicemen and their families to resolve this issue once for all. Every time before making the payment, some hurdle is created by the government. In times of conflict, playing with the morale of soldiers will prove disastrous.