Relief to the central government / Supreme Court upholds the policy of 'One Rank One Pension', directs to pay arrears in three months

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the One Rank One Pension (OROP) policy applicable to retired soldiers. The top court said that there is no constitutional deficiency in this. The Supreme Court also said that there is a provision for review of pension in 5 years in the policy, which is absolutely correct. The government should review the pension from the date of July 1, 2019. Pay the dues in 3 months. Let us inform that the petitioner Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement (IESM) had challenged the government's decision of One Rank One Pension Policy of 2015. In this he had argued that the decision was arbitrary and malicious as it creates class within class and effectively gives different pensions to one rank.

Bench of Justice DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Justice Vikram Nath heard the

A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath said that there is no fault in the Centre's decision on One Rank One Pension (OROP) and we do not want to interfere in the policy matters of the government. The court directed that the government should review the pension with effect from the date of July 1, 2019. Pay the dues in 3 months.

Know what was demanded in the petition

The petition, filed by the Ex-Servicemen Association, had sought implementation of one rank-one pension with an automatic annual revision instead of the current policy of periodic review once in five years by the Bhagat Singh Koshyari committee.

The notification of Orop was issued by the Central Government on 7 November 2015.

The Central Government had released the notification of One Rank One Pension Scheme (OROP) on 7 November 2015. It was told that the scheme would be considered effective from July 1, 2014.

Earlier the hearing was held on 16 February.

Earlier in the hearing on February 16, the court had raised questions on the central government. The Supreme Court had said that the Centre's exaggeration paints an attractive picture on the Orop policy, whereas the pensioners of the Armed Forces have not got much of it. On this, the Center had defended itself and said that this is a decision taken by the cabinet. The Supreme Court had told the Center that as of now there is no statutory definition of OROP.