'P Chidambaram's statement in 2014 made on OROP was without cabinet approval'

The statement on inprinciple approval of One RankOne Pension OROP for defence services was made by then Finance Minister P Chidambaram on February 17 2014 without any recommendation by the then union cabinet the Centre told the Supreme CourtHowever the Centre in its additional affidavit filed in the pending matter on OROP said that the cabinet secretariat had conveyed the approval of the Prime Minister on OROP as per the Transaction of Business Rules on November 7 2015Respondent respectfully submits that this statement of the then Finance Minister dated February 17 2014 is not based on any decision or recommendation by the then Union Cabinet On the other hand the cabinet secretariat conveyed the approval of the Prime Minister in terms of Rules 12 of the Government of India Transaction of Business Rules 1961 on November 7 2015 the affidavit said It added that following this the Department of ExServicemen Welfare of Ministry of Defence vide communication dated November 7 2015 conveyed the policy of OROP for the defence force personnelA postfacto approval of the Union Cabinet dated April 6 2016 was also conveyed by the cabinet secretariat on April 7 2016 it said The clarification was given by the Centre after a bench headed by Justice DY Chandrachud while hearing a PIL filed by Indian Exservicemen Movement IESM on February 16 asked the government to clarify whether the statement made by then Finance Minister on February 17 2014 was based on any decision or recommendation by the Union CabinetThe bench had also asked the Additional Solicitor General N Venkatraman to place on record the proposals before the union cabinet for its approval The affidavit placed on record the communication dated April 7 2016 issued by the cabinet secretariat conveying the expost facto approval and the proposal placed before the Union Cabinet To the Courts query about the financial data of the outflow that is likely to be incurred by the Centre if nonMACP is grouped with MACP personnel for payment of OROP the government said that the total financial outflow from 2014 would be in the range of Rs 4277638 crores The Centre on Modified Assured Career Progression MACP said that it is more or less automatic unless otherwise a person gets disqualified for specific reasons such as disciplinary proceedingsIt said that a Sepoy of three years and Sepoy who had crossed eight years qualifying for MACP are not equated even for OROP purpose since they do not qualify the criteria for same length of service Therefore one of the qualifying conditions for the OROP benefit is benchmarking defence personnel having the same length of service Consequently one who had not put in the same length of service and therefore not eligible for a MACP cannot be benchmarked with personnel who has qualified for MAVP it said adding that the condition same rank with the same length of service had remained constant throughout It saidIt was therefore the consistent plea of the Union that the comparison sought to be made by the petitioners is between comparables and noncomparables and between apples and oranges Therefore this plea of the petitioners should not be allowed to succeediquest The government said that the data of total financial outflow from 2014 in the range of Rs 4277638 crores have been placed on record only for the convenience of the court and should not be treated as a concession or an agreement by the Union to the contentions of the petitionersThe contention of the petitioners defeats one of the core values of the OROP which is not only same rank but with the same length of service This pair cannot be impaired One cannot take only the same rank and ignore the length of service and similarly one cannot merely take the length of service and ignore the rank it added The government said that while framing the OROP regime it has not brought out any discrimination between defence personnel who are in the same rank with the same length of service while the petitioners are seeking an OROP on merely the same rank overlooking the same length of service It also sought to counter the contention of IESM for automatic revision of OROP saying such dynamic calculations are iquestunheardiquest of in practice whether it is a pay scale or pension or any other financial emoluments given to a government servantThis is not in vogue for the simple reason that it is impossible to put it as a scheme of implementationiquest it said On February 16 the top court had said that Centres hyperbole on the OROP policy presented a much rosier picture than what is actually given to the pensioners of the Armed forces It asked the Centre to place before it as to how many persons in the Armed forces have received Modified Assured Career Progression MACP how many are in Assured Career Progression ACP and what would be the financial outlay if the court directs MACP to be also factored in for OROP On July 11 2016 the top court had issued notice on the plea filed by IEMS through advocate Balaji Srinivasan seeking implementation of OROP as recommended by the Koshyari Committee with an automatic annual revision instead of the current policy of periodic review once in five yearsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever