IAF Chief seeks Antony's intervention on re-fixing pay scales

IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne has sought the Defence Minister's intervention to ensure proper implementation of a Supreme Court order asking the Centre to re-fix pay-scales of armed forces officers affected by the fourth pay commission.

The IAF chief, who is the Chairman, Chiefs of Staffs Committee, has written two letters to Defence Minister A K Antony between January and May this year suggesting that the SC order of September last was being implemented selectively by the Ministry.

In the letters, it is learnt that the IAF chief has told the Government that the feeling among the Service officers was that the delay in implementing the Supreme Court order may be intentional.

Browne is also learnt to have told the Minister that the matter of implementing the order could be resolved in the Ministry itself and the forces were being "unnecessarily" taken to the courts.

The particular order of the Supreme Court was expected to benefit a large number of officers in the three Services in the rank of Captain and Brigadiers who had joined the service between January 1,1986 and January 1,2006, according to the counsel of ex-servicemen.

Had the order been implemented as the per the interpretation of the ex-servicemen, it would have entailed a cost of Rs 1,600 crore to the Government.

In the Supreme Court, the ex-servicemen had contended that there was wrong fixation of rank pay awarded by the fourth pay commission in which the element of rank pay was introduced for all the ranks from Captain to Brigadiers in Army and their equivalent in the Navy and Air Force in addition to pay in the integrated scale.

However, at the time of fixation, the rank pay was first deducted to arrive at the total emoluments and thereafter added after fixation in the integrated scale.

This ensured that final fixation of the total pay of the officers became at par with their civilian counterpart.