No constitutional infirmity in One Rank One Pension scheme: SC

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the government's decision on One Rank, One Pension (OROP), and said that it does not find any constitutional infirmity on the OROP principle.

The SC has upheld the manner in which the Central Government introduced the OROP scheme in defence forces as per its notification dated November 7, 2015. "We find no constitutional infirmity in the principle OROP adopted," Court said.

OROP is a policy decision of the government and it is not for the court to go into the adjudication of policy matters, the SC added.


Furthermore, the SC has directed pending re-fixation exercise of OROP should be carried out from July 1, 2019 and arrears should be paid in 3 months.

A bench headed by Justice DY Chandrachud had reserved its verdict on February 23 asking the Centre whether the hardships of ex-servicemen be obviated to a certain extent if the periodic revision of OROP is reduced from five years to a lesser period.

The plea had been filed by the Indian Ex-servicemen Movement (IESM) through advocate Balaji Srinivasan against the Centre's formula of OROP.

The top court had said that whatever it will decide, it will be on the conceptual ground and not on figures. It said, “When you revise after five years, the arrears of five years are not taken into account. The hardships of ex-servicemen can be obviated to a certain extent if the period is reduced from five years to a lesser period”.

The Centre had earlier said that when the revision takes place after five years, the maximum last drawn pay which has all the factors is taken into account with the lowest in the bracket and it is the golden mean which is being given.

“When we framed the policy, we didn't want anyone post-Independence to be left behind. The equalisation was done. We covered the entire past 60-70 years. Now, to amend it through the court's direction, the implications are not known to us. Anything with finance and economics has to be considered with caution. Period of five years is reasonable and it has financial implications also”, it had said.