- The Honourable Supreme Court in the case of Indian Ex Servicemen Movement & Ors. V. Union of India & Ors.[Writ Petition (Civil) No.416 of 2016]has held that the ‘One Rank One Pension’ (OROP) policy constitutionally valid and not violative of any fundamental rights conferred by the Constitution of India. The Honourable Bench held that policy matters like these are more suitable to be addressed by elected representatives since they involve negotiations, trade-offs and a consensus-driven decision-making process. These should not be adjudicated by courts until there was a clear inconsistency with Fundamental Rights.
- The present petition challenged the manner of implementation of “One Rank One Pension” (OROP) policy for ex-servicemen of defence forces by the central government. Instead of an automatic revision of the rates of pension, as proposed earlier, the revision was now to take place at periodic intervals, this was contended to be arbitrary and unconstitutional.
- In December 2011, A Committee had recommended that OROP should be implemented. The Committee defined OROP as a uniform pension to be paid to armed forces personnel retiring at the same rank with the same length of service, regardless of the date of retirement, where any future improvements in the rates of pension were to be automatically passed on to the past pensioners.
- The Learned Counsel for the petitioners contended that the execution of the scheme with the new definition would lead to a situation where the pension drawn by an ex-serviceman who retired earlier, would be less than the pension drawn by one who retired in 2014, until such time that the said ‘periodic review’ was conducted to correct the deviations.
- It was submitted that the new definition created a class within a class where ex-servicemen who retired with the same rank and same length of service would receive different pensions. In UOI v. SPS Vains, the Apex Court had held that creation of a class within a class would not be constitutionally valid.
- The Learned Counsel representing Union of India submitted that the scheme contemplated revision of pension once in five years but in civilian pension schemes which are revised once in ten years. The plea of the petitioners to provide ‘automatic’ adjustment cannot be agreed. It was contended that besides lacking any prior precedent, in terms of the practice governing pay scales, pensions etc. of a government personnel, automatic revision would be impossible to implement.
- The expression ‘automatically’ used in the Koshyari Committee report defining the OROP follow the expression ‘in the rates of pension to be automatically passed on to the past pensioners.’ It must be read with a meaning that the rates of pension would be passed to the past pensioners without any difficulties and delay. The phrase ‘automatically’ never denoted the period of time.
- The Honourable Court observed that the Committee Report was a report submitted to the Rajya Sabha by the Committee on Petitions. The report could not be enforced as a statement of government policy.
- The petitioners had impliedly relied on the Principle of Legitimate Expectations. This could not be invoked in situation where a representation made by a public body leads an individual to believe that they would be a receive a substantive benefit. A part of the petitioners’ grievance, in the present case, arose from the belief that an assurance made by committees, the Ministers of the Union Government, did not translate into a conscious policy decision, which was contained in the communication dated 7 November 2015.
- It was held that the expression ‘automatically passed on’ should not be interpreted as a commitment with reference to any period of time for the computation of benefits. The manner of revision of pensions, salaries etc. was a pure question of policy. The decision of the Government to revise the pension in a period of five years cannot be held to be violation of Article 14.
- In the case of UOI v. SPS Vains. The Court had held that a discrepancy in the pension payable to two groups of officers in the same rank of Major General based dates violated Article 14. This decision involved a completely different factual situation than the present matter.
- In light of the facts underlying the petition, the Honourable Bench found no constitutional inconsistency in the OROP principle as defined by the communication issued dated 7 November 2015 as the definition of OROP would be evenly applicable to all pensioners without reference to the date of retirement. Hence the petition and any pending applications were disposed of.
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