SC Grants Time to Centre to Consider Filing Fresh Response to Plea on OROP

The Supreme Court on Monday granted three weeks' time to the Centre to consider filing a comprehensive affidavit on the grievances of ex-servicemen that there have been anomalies in implementation of the One Rank-One Pension (OROP). A bench comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud and K M Joseph took note of an affidavit of the Centre that an amount of Rs 10,795.4 crores has already been disbursed in pursuance of the executive decision to implement OROP.
The bench, in a hearing conducted through video conferencing, granted time to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to consider filing a detailed affidavit on the redressal of grievances of ex-servicemen and fixed the plea of Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement (IESM) and others for final hearing on September 29. Senior advocate Huzefa Ahmadi, appearing on behalf of ex-servicemen, submitted that the grievance of ex-servicemen in the present proceedings has still not been redressed despite the apex court's order of May 1, 2019 and that “the original decision for the grant of OROP has not been fully implemented.” The Centre said that after considering the grievances, an amount of Rs 10,795.4 crores has been disbursed in pursuance of the executive decision to implement OROP.

“The Solicitor General states that a short adjournment may be granted to enable him to consider whether the filing of a comprehensive affidavit over and above the affidavits which have been filed earlier is necessary. He states that this process shall be completed within a period of three weeks from today,” the bench said in the order. Earlier, the top court had asked the Centre to consider the representation of the ex-servicemen, which was also provided to the court, and try to redress their grievances.
The ex-servicemen had alleged that due to the faulty implementation of OROP, its main purpose has been defeated and a separate class has been created within a class of same officers leading to different pension to persons who had retired from same post after same years of service. They had said that the “pension equalization every five years would result in the grave disadvantage to the past retirees.” The Centre, while implementing the OROP on November 7, 2015, had adopted the policy under which the gap between the rates of pension of current and past pensioners would be bridged at “periodic intervals,” the plea had said.
Prior to this, the apex court had sought the response of the Centre on the plea seeking implementation of OROP as recommended by the Koshyari Committee with an automatic annual revision, instead of the current policy of periodic review once in five years. The IESM and others have challenged the government's policy of periodic review of pension once in five years, saying such an approach was dilution of the February 26, 2014 announcement by which the revision in pension was to automatically pass on to the past pensioners on an annual basis.
They have contended that five-yearly periodic review did not meet the demand of the ex-servicemen seeking OROP for the service personnel who had retired with same length of service in the same rank. "OROP is the uniform desire of all three defence services. Ex-servicemen are presently drawing pension that is not consistent with their rank and/or length of service. In fact, some ex-servicemen are even drawing lesser pension than other ex-servicemen who retired with a subordinate rank or (in the same rank) which is unjust and unconstitutional," the petition said.

It said that the Centre's February 3, 2016 letter sent to the chiefs of Army, Navy and Air Force on OROP was "unjust, arbitrary and violative of Article 14 and 21 of the constitution". The plea sought a direction to the Centre "that the pension of past pensioners be automatically and contemporaneously enhanced, whenever there is any future increase or enhancement in the rates of pension." It further said the government should be directed to fix the pension on the basis of highest pension of financial year 2014-15 and not 2013.
IESM in its petition has referred to the December 19, 2011, report of Rajya Sabha's Petition Committee then headed by Bhagat Singh Koshyari which rejected all reservation advanced by the government while "strongly recommending" OROP. In its 142nd report, the Koshyari Committee had said, "the Committee strongly recommends that Government should implement OROP in the defence forces across the board at the earliest".

WHAT HAPPENED TO OROP CASE 419/2016 IN SUPREME COURT ON 24/08/2020

It seems from the above court findings that the Consul for has misguided the court by stating that an amount of Rs 10795.4 crores has been distributed to the Petitioners to redress the grievance of the Petitioners after the May 1st 2020 order of the court or it may be Possible that the court has misunderstood the statement Submitted by AG. The Petition was not for Implementation OROP but for removal of Anomalies of OROP already implemented by Executive order.The above amount spend was for Implementation of OROP as per the Executive order & the this disbursement has nothing to do with our Petition filed for removing the anomalies after implementation of OROP by executive order.It is unfortunate that the Court has observed it as a redressal of petitioners grievance after its 1st May 2019 Order.

OROP CASE PROCEEDINGS REPORTS FROM SUPREME COURT

Today 24 Aug 2020 OROP case was heard and argued through video conference in court no 3 of Justice Dr Chandrachud and Justice Joseph. Our case was listed at s no 24 and our turn came at 1240.
Govt was represented by SGI Mr Tushar Mehta and his team
Our side was represented by
Mr Hujefa Ahmadi Sr lawyer
Mr Balaji Srinivasan AOR
Mr Arunava Mukherjee lawyer
Mr Rohan Sharma lawyer
M/s Garima lawyer
MAJ Gen Satbir Singh and Gp Capt VK Gandhi attended virtual hearing through video conferencing.
To start with SGI Mr Tushar Mehta requested for physical hearing of the case and requested for three weeks time to study and make further submissions if felt necessary.
Our lawyers contested tooth and nail the submission of SGI Mr Tushar Mehta and argued.
1. All required submissions have been made to the Honourable court. And no further submissions are needed.  This in fact is delaying tactic on part of Govt.
2. Our lawyer submitted that our last note given to HSC on 6 Aug was final and Govt had submitted an affidavit in response to our submission. It has taken more than one year since HSC asked GOI to find solutions to anomalies pointed out by pensioners.
3. This delay is depriving of 25 lakh soldiers and five lakhs widows of full and legitimate OROP.
4. Mr Hujefa insisted that we are ready for final arguments and submitted that Govt had promised One Rank One Pension but has given one rank many pensions. This is hurting soldiers and veterans.
On hearing arguments of both counsel Justice Chandrachud stated that Govt has given RS 10000 crores on account of OROP. He agreed to give time to Govt as requested by SGI.
Our lawyers again requested for arguments but Honourable court decided to grant time to Govt.
Mr Balaji Srinivasan requested the court that let that be final hearing on that court made a note and fixed 29 Sept as next date for hearing.
IESM sincerely thanks our team of lawyers under the leadership of Mr Hujefa and Mr Balaji Srinivasan who are standing for veterans for OROP pro bono.
Next date for hearing in HSC for OROP is 29 Sep 2020.
Gp Capt VK Gandhi VSM
Vice Chairman IESM.
24 Aug 2020

Diary No.- 19818 - 2016

INDIAN EX SERVICEMEN MOVEMENT (AN ALL INDIA FEDERATION OF MILITARY VETERANS ORGANISATION REPRESENTED vs. UNION OF INDIA DEPARTMENT OF EXSERVICEMEN WELFARE MINISTRY OF DEFENCE SECRETARY

Case Details

Diary No.	19818/2016 Filed on 09-06-2016 04:14 PM PENDING    [SECTION: X]
Case No.	W.P.(C) No. 000419 / 2016  Registered on 15-06-2016
Present/Last Listed On	24-08-2020 [HON'BLE DR. JUSTICE D.Y. CHANDRACHUD and HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K.M. JOSEPH] [CL.NO. : 0]
Status/Stage	Pending - (Motion Hearing [TOP OF THE LIST (FOR ADMISSION)]) List On (Date) (29-09-2020)-Ord dt:24-08-2020
Tentatively case may be listed on (likely to be listed on)	29-09-2020 (Computer generated)
Category	3900-Matters Pertaining To Armed Forces & Paramilitary Forces

PROCEEDURE FOR RE-IMBURSEMENT OF EMERGENCY ADMISSION EXPENDITURE IN NON-EMPANNELED HOSPITALS

NEW POLITICAL OUTFIT TO TAKE UP THE CAUSE OF EX-SERVICEMEN WITH DESW

The Recently formed political Party conjointly by retired soldiers and Kisan namely Bharatheeya jawan kisan Party (BJKP)is committed to exservicemen fraternity. One of the most worrying problem among so many is the proceedure  and expenditure for changing the date of birth and correcting/changing the  name  of dependents of retired  Armed forces soldiers. Hence BJKP humbly submit the following for your kind intervention to alleviate the hardship of retired soldiers who always given predominant consideration to our great Nation than their personal benefits or comforts 
         Sir,  PCDAs have started issuing ePPOs for pre 2016 pensioners. It has been noticed that particulars endorsed in most of the  ePPOs especially the name and date of births of spouse are found to be wrong  with the education /birth certificates,  adhar , pan card, passport,  voter id card and like civil documents.Since the introduction of Adhar card every institutions are demanding to submit adhar card as a proof for Date of birth. Instances have occured that the widows are denied family pension as the particulars endorsed in PPO is not matching with adhar card and other documents. The proceedure for correcting the names are not similar  in every arm of the Armed Forces and it is different in the cases of  various Record offices of Army . This may be caused due to not  apprising the concerned Record Offices   either by ESM organisations  or by the ESMs individually.
         Poor ESMs getting  only minimum pension(9000/- basic pension )  spend more than one month of their pension (upto 15000/-) to rectify the   errors caused inadvertently either by ESMs or in the  Record Office.
       most commonly, the  Records offices  demand Gazette Publication and news paper advertisement, marriage certificate, affidavit by judicial first class majistrate (compulsory for some Record Offices ) or by Notary alongwith other documents.Gathering the above documents are  a himalayan task. At least 3 months Streneous efforts, frequent visits to various Govt offices and a heavy expenditure   required for the poor ESMs to rectify these minute errors     while Retired officers drawing pension near to lakh could be rectified  the same errors on submiting a self application with an expense of only 5 Rupees for the envolope to submit their application.         Correction in names are not to be considered as change of name since lion part  of these  are  spelling mistakes, initial placed before or after names,Name of spouse recorded by  adding the name of  husband or  Etc and mismatch of date of birth recorded in Military  Documents  with original birth /education certificates.
       Zila Sainik Welfare Offices (ZSWOs)are meant and functioning in every Districts and the expenses of these  offices are borne by the people of the country for the welfare of soldiers.   Genuiness of the application for change of birth and correction of name can be verified and vetted by ZSWOs  themselves  and recommend to correct the  perticulars for  endorsing in the  pension payment order and military documents  thereby the finacial and physical hardship of these poor ESMs and expenditure of the Govt. could be curatiled  to almost NIL.. Our poor soldiers are suffering this hardship since independence .
        Hence we humbly request the following
1.  The same proceedure for Retired officers to be made applicable to the retired soldiers also
            Or
2.  Implement uniform proceedure for all and   Simplify the proceedure.
3.   The application for rectifying the above could be allowed to send either through EMAIL or online application like applying for the various schemes in Kendriya Sainik Board. 
3.  The above problem is the only one among many. Hence we humbly request the time convenient to meet you in person  for our President, Secretary and one of our cordinator  to apprise the problems of our poor ESMs.
Thanking you in anticipation of an early action
With warm regards
President

VETERANS WAIT FOR THE MERCY OF SUPREME COURT on 24/08/2020

THANKS TO HON LT. S. PAL SINGH FOR HIGH LIGHTING THE OROP ANOMALY IN POPULAR PLATFORM