Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, March 16: The Supreme Court upheld the government’s One Rank, One Pension (OROP) ruling on Wednesday, stating that the OROP policy had no constitutional flaws.
The Supreme Court upheld the method in which the Central Government implemented the OROP programme in the defence forces, as per its November 7, 2015 notification.
We find no constitutional infirmity in the principle OROP adopted,” said the court.
On February 23, a bench led by Justice DY Chandrachud deferred its decision, asking the Centre whether ex-hardships servicemen’s could be alleviated to some extent if the periodic review of OROP was shortened from five years to a shorter term.
The Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement (IESM) brought the case against the Centre’s OROP formula through counsel Balaji Srinivasan.
The Supreme Court has stated that whatever decision it makes would be based on concepts rather than numbers.
The Centre had previously stated that when the revision occurs after five years, the maximum last drawn pay, which takes into consideration all variables and is paid to the lowest in the bracket, is the golden mean.
“When we framed the policy, we didn’t want anyone post-Independence to be left behind. The equalisation was done. We covered the entire past 60-70 years. Now, to amend it through the court’s direction, the implications are not known to us. Anything with finance and economics has to be considered with caution. Period of five years is reasonable and it has financial implications also”, it had said.
