Committee Report circumnavigates main issue of Pension Parity for Defence Forces

Date: Wednesday, 26 August, 2009, 11:26 AM
Sir,
I happened to lay my hands (courtesy Lt Cdr Balaji of Pension Cell of IESM) for the first time on the 'Report of the committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary to (specifically study OROP Demand of the Armed Forces' click me formed under the directions of the Prime Minister on a reference from the Raksha Mantri.

The President had also announced in the Parliament the formation of this committee specifically for the Armed Forces as related to their demand of OROP. The clear inference of this is that the terms of reference for this committee were as related to the reference to issues raised by the Raksha Mantri. Therefore the committee was supposed restrict their study only to the demand of OROP of the Armed Forces. Yet, the committee advises the extension of one of the recommendations to the civilians also. This is with regard to the pay scale and consequently pension in respect of Lt.Gen. and equivalent ranks in the other two services. Para (V) of the report 'summary of recommendations' advocates a separate pay-scale(67000-79000) for Lt. Gens in the HAG. In the same breath the committee recommends the extension of this benefit to Addl Secretaries,Chief Commissioners of Income Tax, Addl Dir Gens of police/eq grade. If so many arguments are advanced by the committee against accepting OROP, how does the same committee makes such a recommendation without even one line of justification for its own ilk?

This shows how babus extend all benefits meant for others to themselves conveniently and without any struggle. And how they ensure that their ascendancy is always maintained.

But the main issue at consideration is whether this underhand dealing is legally or ethically sustainable? Can an official committee formed with a specific terms of reference enlarge the scope of its study on its own and whether acceptance/ implementations by the government of its recommendations on such enlarged scope legally/ ethically valid? The inference is also that the President misled the Parliament when she announced that the government is committed to the welfare of the Armed Forces resulting in the formation of the committee, while the committee was also committed to the welfare of its own tribe. Has this yet been questioned by any ESM?

I request the legal cell of IESM to study the matter. This will also be useful for taking a decision on further course of action once the RTI information on the 5 committees sought by Cmde Batra is available.
Regards,
Shashank Bendre
Wg Cdr (Retd)

Sunday, August 23, 2009
Complete recommendations: report of the Committee of Secretaries
Readers may access and download the complete recommendations of the Committee of Secretaries by clicking here. Though most of the important issues have already been amplified in earlier posts, some other recommendations are :

(a) Like defence personnel, linkage of full pension with 33 years’ service also to be removed for civilians who retired between 01 January 2006 and 31 August 2008.

(b) Broad-banding of disability percentage would be extended to pre-1996 pensioners too. It may be recalled that the 5th Pay Commission, in order to curtail medical subjectivity of medical boards, had recommended that personnel with a disability percentage below 50% may be released a disability element by taking the disability @ 50%, those with 50%-75% disability may be paid @ 75% and those with a disability percentage of over 76% may be paid by taking the disability as 100%. This was accepted by the Govt in 2001 but was made applicable only to post-96 pensioners. The Hon’ble Punjab & Haryana High Court had however held that this dispensation should be extended to pre-96 disability pensioners too but the said decision was challenged by the Govt in the Hon’ble Supreme Court.

(c) Removal of the cap on war-injury pension (known as Disability pension of Category E in case of civilians) to be extended to personnel of civilian forces too.
Posted by Navdeep / Maj Navdeep Singh
Recommendations of Cabinet Secretary