Will not accept recommendations on pension hike by 10% in OROP: Govt to SC

The Centre on Thursday told the Supreme Court that it has decided not to accept recommendations for enhancing pension by 10 per cent to retired regular captains of the Army in accordance with the One Rank One Pension scheme (OROP).

A bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and justices Sanjay Kumar and Manmohan was apprised about the non-acceptance of recommendations on pension hike by Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati, who appeared for the Centre.

The top court was hearing an appeal of the Centre challenging an order of December 7, 2021 of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) at Kochi.

According to the AFT order, the central government was to take a decision on the pension payable to the retired regular captains.

"We have made a decision and we have not accepted the recommendations," the ASG said.

The bench then asked the counsel appearing for retired Army captains including M Gopalan Nair, who are fighting for enhanced pension, to challenge the non-acceptance of the recommendations as the time is the essence in such matters.

The counsel for former Army officers sought time to take instructions and this led the bench to adjourn the hearing to December 12.

Earlier, the bench had come down heavily on the Centre for failing to take any decision for years on the pension payable to retired regular captains in accordance with the OROP scheme and imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh on it.

It had granted the Centre the last opportunity for resolving the anomalies with regard to the pension of such retired officers under the scheme.

The bench had said if no decision is taken then it will direct for enhanced pension by 10 per cent to the retired regular captains. The Centre had said six anomalies were pointed out by the Kochi bench of the AFT and they needed to be rectified, but it was yet to take a stand.

"For how many years will this go on? Either you pay an enhanced pension by 10 per cent or we are imposing a cost on you. We wanted a decision to be taken, but you have not taken it. This matter came up in 2021 but still no decision has been taken," the bench had said.

The root of the dispute lies in the OROP scheme introduced by the Centre in 2015.

Under the scheme, the rate of pensions for past retirees were fixed at par with that for the current retirees of the armed forces.

However, certain anomalies crept in the pension tables for captains and majors for the lack of proper data of the officers in the ranks of regular captains and majors since the minimum current rank of retirement to attain pensionable service is lieutenant colonel.

The Ministry of Defence appointed a One Man Judicial Committee (OMJC) to recommend the resolution of this anomaly in 2016 but no decision was taken by the ministry on the matter after that.

Subsequently, the Kochi Bench of the AFT directed the ministry to resolve the anomaly based on the OMJC's recommendations in a time-bound manner.

However, the Centre challenged the AFT order in the Supreme Court.