SC upholds Centre's OROP principle

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the One Rank-One Pension (OROP) principle adopted by the Centre in its 2015 communication issued to the Chiefs of three defence forces saying it neither suffers from any Constitutional infirmity nor is it arbitrary.

The top court said that the Bhagat Singh Koshyari committee report, tabled in the Rajya Sabha on December 10, 2011, furnishes the historical background, the reason for the demand, view of the Parliamentary Committee which proposed the adoption of OROP for personnel belonging to the armed forces and beyond this, the Report cannot be construed as embodying a statement of governmental policy.

It held that governmental policy formulated in terms of Article 73 by the Union or Article 162 by the State has to be authoritatively gauged from the policy documents of the government, which in the present case is the communication dated November 7, 2015.

A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath said that the canvass which is sought to be traversed in these proceedings under Article 32 of the Constitution trenches upon a domain which is reserved for executive policy.

Applying the above principles to the facts of the case, we find no constitutional infirmity in the OROP principle as defined by the communication dated November 7, 2015, it said.

The top court's verdict came on the plea filed by the Indian Ex-servicemen Movement (IESM) through advocate Balaji Srinivasan against the Centre's formula of OROP.

The bench further said that in terms of the communication dated November 7, 2015, the benefit of 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 said, adding, We accordingly order and direct that in terms of the communication dated November 7, 2015, a re-fixation exercise shall be carried out from July 1, 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. The bench said while no legal or Constitutional mandate of OROP can be read into the earlier decisions of the top court, varying pension payable to officers of the same rank retiring before and after July 1, 2014 either due to (Modified Assured Career Progression) or the different base salary used for the calculation of pension cannot be held arbitrary.

Since the OROP definition is not arbitrary, it is not necessary for us to undertake the exercise of determining if the financial implication of the scheme is negligible or enormous, it said.