one rank one pension and rank pay denied to veterans

8/6/2019 One Rank One Pension and Rank Pay denied to Veterans

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To

Dated: 06 Aug 2011

Dr. Manmohan SinghHonblePrime Minister of India10 Parliament HouseNew Delhi -11

GOVT APATHY TOWARDS DEFENCE VETERANS :SERIOUS ANOMALIES IN PAY AND PENSIONS NOT ADDRESSED

Dear Sh. Manmohan Singh Jee,

1. We the Defence Veterans once again wish to approach you for the resolution of seriousanomalies in the pay and pensions of Defence Veterans and request you to kindly address ourgenuine demands.

One Rank One Pension

2. This demand is over three decades old but has become the most serious grievance of thedefence veterans specially after the 6th CPC award. One Rank One Pension for us means removalof the gap in pensions of various ranks of the Defence Services of pre and post 2006 retirees andnot bridging of the gap as being stated by the RM and some bureaucrats who are detailed to sit onvarious committees on the issues of Defence Personnel without having any representations fromthe Defence Personnel. You are perhaps aware that the department of ESW (Ex Servicemen

Welfare) set up in the MoD also does not have any representation from the Defenc Servicesserving or retired. The bureaucrats manning the ESW have done nothing to resolve the seriousanomalies. You are also aware that Defence Services have a pyramidical rank based structureand sensitivities of each rank which is earned with great amount of efforts & hard work need to berespected. How can a Sepoy draw more pension than a Havildar and a Lt Col more pension thana Major General just because the Sepoy and Lt Col retired later than 01 Jan 2006. Also DefencePersonnel of the same rank and same length of service are drawing different pensions with adifferential upto 63 percent. This type of pension policy has totally destroyed the rank basedstructure of the Defence Forces.

3. Honble Prime Minister, you are also aware that over 85 percent of the Defence Personnel arecompulsorily retired at the ages of 35 - 37 years and majority of officers also retire at the age of 54years only. 0.02 percent very two inadequate. You are also aware that while the three assuredcareer progression are available to Central Govt Civilians Employees, these are denied to theDefence Personnel because of compulsory early retirement and deep selections system.


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Consequently while 100 percent of IAS, IPS, IFS and grade A services reach the HAG/ HAG +grade and thus enjoy OROP, the defence personnel are denied the same. To add to the woes ofDefence Personnel, the non functional upgrade authorized to civilians employees has not beenmade applicable to the defence personnel. This has resulted in serious disadvantage to theDefence Personnel.

4. Mr. Prime Minister, the biggest blunder committed by the then Govt was in 1973 when the 3rd

CPC clubbed Defence Personnel with the civilian employees. The bureaucrats succeeded indowngrading and degrading the military in status, in service prospects benefits and emolumentpackages. Some examples of discrimination against Defence Personnel vis--vis civilianemployees are as under:-

(a) Non Functional Upgrades for Civilian Employee.

(b) Broad banding of Disability Pension For Civilian,

(c) Special Incentives for Civilian Employees for posting to difficult areas.

(d) Special Incentive to Widows of Civilian Employees.

(e) Self Determined Performance Based Incentives applicable to Civilian Employees.

(f) Pay & Pension Edge of Defence Personnel available in the sixties has beendemolished.

(g) Year wise Parity/Edge of Defence Personnel vis--vis Civilian Counterparts notMaintained.

5. There is urgent and strong need to have full review of Pay, pensions, status, in serviceprospects/benefits to reestablish the edge of Defence personnel over the civilian counterparts.While the permanent solution would be to go back to pre 3 CPC structure of Standard MilitaryPensions with the clear differential edge which existed between the Defence personnel and thecivilian employees, as an interim measure OROP, the most genuine demand pending for the threedecades needs to be sanctioned at the earliest. It will be pertinent to mention, while the pension of

the highest Civilian Official was Rs 416.50 pm in 1961, the pension of COAS was Rs 1000 pm/.However in 2006 pensions of both have been pegged at Rs 45000 pm. This means while thepension of highest Civilian employees has increased 108 times, that of Defence personnel only 45times. There is no justification for this. It is a grave injustice. This needs to be corrected througha separate commission or immediate commission for Armed Forces. As an interim measure,OROP be sanctioned at the earliest with following provisions:-

(a) Same Rank, Same Length of Service Must get same pension irrespective of the dateof retirement.

(b) No senior rank defence personnel to ever get less pension than his junior rank

irrespective the date of retirement.


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Widows Pensions

6. As you might be aware, the Cabinet Secretarys Committee was constituted in 2009 tospecifically examine the issue of one rank one pension (OROP) for military pensioners. While notbacking the demand for OROP, the Committee had recommended some enhancement ofpensions for personnel other than commissioned officers. This recommendation has since beenimplemented.

7. For some reason, the pension received by Service widows remained uncovered by theenhancement recommended by the Cabinet Secretarys Committee. This came as a great shock tothe entire community of Ex Servicemen as the neediest segment of pensioners was deprived ofeven this partial enhancement. We wrote to the Honble PM. Two different replies came. Onespoke of pension being related to the last pay drawn and hence the inability to give it in caseswhere the Ex Serviceman had passed away. The second reply simply said the widows were notcovered because the Cabinet Secretarys Committee had not recommended their inclusion. An

other letter was written to the Honble PM by Lt Gen Raj Kadyan, Chairman IESM requestingreview; no reply has come.

8. Singling out the hapless widows has been very unfortunate and betrays lack of sensitivity onthe part of the government. It has also caused consternation among the veterans and has becomea highly emotive issue. The pensions of widows need to be enhanced at the earliest.

Rank Pay Anomaly of 4th Pay Commission

9. (a) To partially compensate defence service officers, for their unusual and harsh

conditions of service, the Govt of India approved the 4th CPC recommendation ofRank Pay, to be added to the Basic Pay of officers of ranks Capt Brig. This wouldhave had a cascading effect on even Maj Gens and Lt Gens. This would have in turn alsoimpacted on the pension of Defence Services Officers.

(b) Despite the above approval, in the execution stage, this advantage was neutralised bya bureaucratic manipulation, by first deducting and then adding rank pay. Consequentlynot only the desired increase, approved by the GOI based on the IVth CPC, not actuallyoccur and the pay remained unchanged, but infact resulted in the Basic Pay beingcorrespondingly lowered from earlier level. This lowering had a detrimental effect on eachranks relative equation to other services, being lowered etc. but also had cascading effecton successive pay commissions.

(c) The above anomaly was taken to court by one Maj Dhanapalan. The Court ruled in hisfavour as did the Kerla High Court and the Supreme Court. His dues were upwardlyrevised and he received arrears of his pay and pension.

(d) It would have been natural and within tenets of fair play for the Govt tomagnanimously apply this judgement to all similarly placed officers. This unfortunately didnot happen.


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(e) The Retired Defence Officer Association (RDOA) an ESM body approached the courts

for application of above judgement to all similarly placed officers. The Supreme Court hasruled in favour of the RDOA and directed their payment of all arrears plus interest @ 6% bepaid to all similarly placed officers.

(f) The government has not only not implemented the court judgement but also is delayingthe implementation of Rank Pay by launching infructuous appeals for revisions of theabove ruling.

Govts Scant Respect For the Judgements Given in Favour of Defence Personnel by variousCourts of the Country,

10. With serious concern, we wish to apprise the Honble PM that over 90 percent of the 4000cases filed by the Defence Personnel in Armed Forces Tribunals were decided in favour of them.But the Govt has not implemented the judgements in favour of the Defence Personnel. Instead, ithas been filing appeals in the higher judiciary against these judgements. Even the judgementsgiven in favour of Defnece personnel by the Honble Supreme Court have not been honoured. It ispertinent to mention that in other countries like USA, UK, Canada etc, as a convention the Court judgement given in favour of Defence Personnel is not contested. There is need to give duerespect to the judgements given by the AFTs and other higher judiciary.

Major Cause of Anomalies in Pay and Pensions of Defence Personnel

11. Dear Prime Minister, You must try and analyse as to why no order of GOI pertaining to theEx Servicemen in India comes out without large number of anomalies? Answer is very simple thepersons sitting in your so called Ex Servicemen Welfare Department of the Ministry of Defenceknow nothing about the three Defence Services and in particular the problems of retired DefencePensioners and their dependents. The present ESW Department issues one letter to resolve ananomaly and creates many more anomalies by issue of this letter. Unless the ESW Department is

constituted of the serving and retired Defence personnel of the three services these anomalieswill never be resolved. The Head of the ESW Department should be a serving Lt Gen/Maj Gen orequivalent from one of the Services in rotation. At the next level we should have three serving Brigand equivalent, one from each Service. All remaining staff should be retired Defence personnel,who should be permitted to serve upto the age of 62 years.

12. The dissatisfaction of the Defence Veterans has got very serious implications for the securityof the country and therefore I implore you that serious note be taken of the same and thegrievances of the veterans be addressed soonest as suggested above.


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13. By now it has become amply clear beyond any doubt that for reasons not known to us, thebureaucracy is hostile towards the needs of Defence Personnel and as the matter is quitecomplex, we request that one hour may be allotted to us to present our case to you personally.

With Kind Regards,

Yours Sincerely,

Maj Gen (Retd) Satbir Singh, SMIndian ESM MovementMobile: 9312404269, 0124-4110570Email: [email protected]

Copy to :-

Sh. A.K. Antony, - For information and action please.Defence Minister,104, South Block,New Delhi

Gen Vijay Kumar Singh, PVSM, AVSM, YSM, ADC -With request for collective interventionChief of the Army Staff to address the serious anomalies andIntegrated HQs of Armed Forces (Army) consequent injustice to the defenceSouth Block, New Delhi-110011 veterans.

Admiral Nirmal Kumar Verma, PVSM, AVSM, ADC -do-Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee andChief of the Naval StaffIntegrated HQs of Armed Forces (Navy)South Block, New Delhi-110011

Air Chief Marshal Norman Anil Kumar Browne, PVSM, AVSM, VM -do-Chief of the Air StaffIntegrated HQs of Armed Forces (Air Force)Vayu Bhawan, New Delhi-110011


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one rank one pension and rank pay denied to veterans

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