VETERAN MAHANANDA BISWAS FILES GRIEVANCE WITH PMO

Name Of Complainant

Mahananda Biswas

Date of Receipt

20/06/2022

Received By Ministry/Department

Prime Minister’s Office

Grievance Description

Honourable Prime Minister Sir,
I am a Defence Pensioner and thus is a beneficiary and stakeholder by any revision or refixation of Defence pension. Government of India, Ministry of Defence issued a notification on 07.09.2015 for implementation of One Rank One Pension with effect from 01.07.2014 for Defence Pensioners with well-defined salient features. The OROP notification clearly stipulated that: “The pension would be re-fixed every 5 years.”

Unfortunately, till now Department of Ex-servicemen Welfare failed to re-fix the pension on expiry of 5 years I.e., with effect from 01.07.2019 despite the order of Honourable Raksha Mantri as early as in 14 June, 2019. So, in effect Department of Ex-servicemen Welfare has violated the Government notification to the peril of pensioners like me and millions of other Defence Pensioners.

Though there was no suspension or injunction order of any Court of Justice on the OROP Re-fixation process, the Secretary, Ex-servicemen Welfare stated in a SCOVA meeting that the Re-fixation process was held up as the matter was sub judice. He was referring to HSC case WPC (C) 419/2016.

At present, that case is no longer sub judice, as the case is settled, and jurisdiction passed on 16 March 2022 by Division Bench of HSC. The Jurisdiction is attached herewith.

Sir, please refer to the points 50 and 51 of the HSC jurisdiction, where the Division Bench of HSC directed and ordered Government of India that “in terms of the communication dated 7 November 2015, a re-fixation exercise shall be carried out from 1 July 2019, upon the expiry of five years. Arrears payable to all eligible pensioners of the armed forces shall be computed and paid over accordingly within a period of three months”.


To utter disregard to its own notification and gross violation of HSC order, Ministry of Defence neither re-fixed the pension nor paid any arrears to me or any of the eligible pensioners

The failure of the executive to comply with an order of Highest Judiciary of the country is a grave cause of concern to me and millions of Defence Pensioners as a whole. It is emanating a wrong signal to the total ex-servicemen fraternity as well as to the serving soldiers.

I, as a Defence Pensioner is filing this complaint and urge you to direct Ministry of Defence, Government of India to immediately comply to the GOI notification and HSC order to re-fix the OROP pension with effect from 01.07.2019 and pay arrears to all eligible pensioners.

I am sure that your pro-active initiative to iron out the grievances of large section of society would lead us to the path of peace and progress.

Jai Hind.

Yours Faithfully
Mahananda Biswas
Ex-Sergeant of Indian Air Force.