OROP govt's policy decision, suffers from no constitutional infirmity: SC

The Supreme Court said that One Rank-One Pension (OROP) in Armed forces is a policy decision and suffers from no constitutional infirmity

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that One Rank-One Pension (OROP) in Armed forces is a policy decision and suffers from no constitutional infirmity.

A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath said that the policy decision of the Centre of OROP is not arbitrary and it is not for the court to go into the policy matters of the government.

It directed that the pending re-fixation exercise of OROP, which has not been done due to pendency of matter before the court after the expiry of five years, should be carried out from July 1, 2019, and arrears be paid to the pensioners in three months.

The top court disposed of a plea filed by Ex-servicemen Association seeking implementation of the One Rank-One Pension as recommended by the Bhagat Singh Koshyari Committee with an automatic annual revision, instead of the current policy of periodic review once in five years.