The Supreme Court on Monday pulled up the Ministry of Defence over the delay in fee of arrears of One Rank-One Pension (OROP) to eligible pensioners of the armed forces and sought an evidence from the secretary involved for issuing a communication extending the timeline for payments mounted by the courtroom.
On January 9, the highest courtroom granted time until March 15 to the Centre for fee of whole arrears of OROP. But on January 20, the ministry issued a communication that the arrears shall be paid in 4 yearly installments which has been challenged by a gaggle of ex-servicemen.
Observing that the sanctity of the judicial course of must be maintained, a bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud requested the Ministry to “set its house in order” and directed the secretary to file a private affidavit explaining his place.
“We gave you an extension till March 15 for payment of arrears. Now in the face of our orders of January 9, how can you issue a communication that you will pay the amount in four equal installments? Why shouldn’t we proceed against your secretary? In the face of our order, how can you pass an order by an administrative circular extending time…”
“You tell your secretary that we are going to take action against him for issuing that communication. The sanctity of the judicial process has to be maintained. Either the secretary withdraws it, or we are going to issue a contempt notice to the Ministry of Defense and that will be very serious,” the bench additionally comprising justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala mentioned.
The high courtroom mentioned the ministry had no enterprise to take the legislation into its arms and problem unilateral communication to increase the time for fee.
“We have fixed March 15 and you had no business to say that the money will be paid in installments. Here you are not fighting a war. Here you are fighting against the rule of law. Set your house in order. This is not the way the ministry of defence to go about it,” the bench noticed.
At the outset, Additional Solicitor General N Venkataraman instructed the courtroom that the ministry needs to be given time to hold out the train as per the courtroom’s order.
“We have already started to comply with the order. This can be heard in the second or third week of April when we will be able to file better compliance,” the ASG mentioned.
Venkataraman submitted that out of twenty-two lakh pensioners, the federal government has already given cash to eight lakh pensioners amounting to Rs 2,500 crores.
“By March 31, we plan to make a one-time payment to family pensioners. We are not trying to withhold it. We just want to make the payment in a staggered manner,” he mentioned.
The apex courtroom was listening to an utility filed by the Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement (IESM) in search of payments of arrears in one installment as a substitute of 4 installments.
Senior advocate Huzefa Ahmadi, showing for the military personnel, requested how might the federal government unilaterally modify the deadline set by the courtroom.
“When this court passed an order how can the department reserve the right to modify it? Four lakh pensioners have passed away in the interregnum and they cannot claim the pension. They will never get the benefit,” he mentioned.
The bench then directed the secretary to file a private affidavit on the problem.
“We direct the secretary concerned in Defence Ministry to file a personal affidavit explaining circumstances in which such unilateral decision to extend the time for payment was made inspite of clear direction of this court,” the highest courtroom mentioned in its order.
The bench additionally warned the ASG that curiosity on the fee of 9 p.c shall be imposed if arrears aren’t cleared by March 15. The apex courtroom posted the matter after the Holi trip.
The high courtroom had earlier requested the Centre to make sure that all arrears are paid expeditiously to the pensioners of the armed forces and that there is no such thing as a additional delay.
The authorities had moved the highest courtroom in December 2022, in search of an extension of time until March 15, 2023 for the fee of arrears of OROP scheme to all eligible pensioners of the armed forces.
This was the second extension given by the highest courtroom to the Union authorities to pay the arrears after it had first moved the highest courtroom in June, final yr and sought three months to compute and make payments in accordance with the March 16, 2022 verdict of the highest courtroom.
The high courtroom’s 2022 verdict got here on the plea filed by the Indian Ex-servicemen Movement (IESM) by means of advocate Balaji Srinivasan towards the Centre’s components.
It had mentioned in phrases of the communication dated November 7, 2015, the good thing about OROP was to be effected from July 1, 2014 and the communication states that “in future, the pension would be re-fixed every five years”.
“Such an exercise has remained to be carried out after the expiry of five years possibly because of the pendency of the present proceedings,” the bench had mentioned, including, “We accordingly order and direct that in phrases of the communication dated November 7, 2015, a re-fixation train shall be carried out from July 1, 2019, upon the expiry of 5 years.
“Arrears payable to all eligible pensioners of the armed forces shall be computed and paid over accordingly within a period of three months,” it had mentioned.
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