The
ex-servicemen community believes that the timing of filing a review petition in
HSC has given the Union of India a shot in the arm to further delay the
long-delayed implementation of the OROP refixation. Any layman can find that
there is no legitimate basis or scope for filing a review petition before the
same court that delivered the judgement. All our learned colleagues' arguments,
as briefed by the managers of the legal battle, were flatly rejected by the
court.
Many
members of the impacted community were concerned from the start about relying
on the Koshyari Committee report, which has no legal backing. We are at a loss
to understand how those learned senior consuls consented to argue the case
solely based on the report of the above committee, which has only advisory
power and relied on parliamentary speeches. The overdependence on these points
has diverted our attention from convincing the court regarding discrimination
and arbitrariness in the original OROP notification based on an executive
decision.
The basis
of the review petition appears to have stemmed from the appellants'
desperation, which will hurt the entire ex-serviceman community. The timing and
impact of the review petition will almost certainly be detrimental to the
interests of the entire ex-serviceman community. The Appellants, who were once
advocates of the OROP campaign in the eyes of the ex-servicemen community, have
now become roadblocks to the long awaited OROP refixation.
We are
not blaming the appellants for their failure to win the case because winning
and losing are both parts of the judicial process that must be accepted
wholeheartedly. Having said that, the appellants' actions in filing a review petition
after the judgement upholding the executive decision are not acceptable to the
ex-servicemen community and are detrimental to their interests.
Last but
not least, we are grateful to the appellants who pioneered the OROP campaign
and brought the matter to judicial scrutiny where the bench ordered the
refixasion as per earlier executive decision that was otherwise unlikely to be
updated on the grounds that it had already been revised by the 7th CPC, as
instructed by the Hon CGDA.
.jpg)
