Friday, September 7, 2012

Rank Pay: Will the MOD in conjunction with UOI throw more spanners?

LATEST UPDATE
IV Pay Commission Rank Pay Anomaly Case
In the case of Maj AK Dhanapalan Vs Union of India in OP 2448/96, The Hon’ble High Court of Kerela allowed the plea of the officer and held that the deduction of the rank pay was not correct and directed to re fix the basic pay of the officer from 1.1.1986. Appeal filed by the Union of India before the larger bench of the High Court & SLP in the Hon’ble Supreme Court against the judgment was dismissed. Although Govt sanction to pay arrears to Maj AK Dhanapalan were issued, the benefit was not extended to similarly placed officers of the three Services.
Similar cases were filed by a large number of officers in various courts throughout the country. The Supreme Court of India directed that such of the cases be transferred to the apex court. Retired Defence Officers Association (RDOA) has been able to transfer one of the ‘lead cases’ from Kerela to the Supreme Court.
AS ON 04 SEPT 2012
The IV CPC Rank Pay Case was finally heard today ie 04 Sept 2012, in Court no 7, in the court of Hon’ble Justices RM Lodha, TS Thakur and Anil S Dave. The appeal file by UOI for recall of order of the Hon’ble Court dated 08 March 2010 was dismissed by the Court. The court upheld its order of 08 Mar 2010. The Solicitor General spent marathon four hrs to convince the court about the legitimate deduction of the rank pay but was not able to justify the deduction of rank pay and as to fitment of pay of AF officer vis a vis a civilian offr drawing same basic pay as on 1/1/1986.
The said order will be applicable to all affected offrs of the AF wef 01/01/1986 to 01/01/2006 across board. It would also be applicable to all pending cases in various courts and AFT’s across the country on the subject case.
The interest will be applicable @ 6% wef 01/01/2006 and not 1986. This is the only change made by the court. The court has also directed that all arrears should be paid within outer limit of 3 months from today ie 04 Sept 2012.
So, the pay and pension of all affected officers of the AF are set to revise from 01/01/1986.
RDOA Blogspot
SPANNERS PROPOSED BY UOI through Solicitor General as on 11 Jan 2012
The UOI has suggested a big 'spanner' to cause delay in the IV CPC rank pay case. In its affidivit filed the UOI says that the Central Govt is open and willing to constitute an independent commission headed by a retired judge of the Supreme Court to examine the correctness of the implementation of the recommendations by IV CPC related to rank pay as given in para 28.113 of its report and to make recommendations for further improvements to the proceedure for disbursement of pension to retired Armed forces personnel based on Govt orders subsequent to VI CPC recommendations THIS IS PURE HOGWASH AND ONLY TO DELAY MATTERS. RDOA IS NOT GOING TO BUY THIS LINE OF ACTION. Further it says: Apart from the enormous financial implications, actual implementation of the Hon'ble Court's order would involve the following stages;
  • Revision of pay of offrs on 1/1/1986, 1/1/1996, and 1/1/2006 with simultaneous revision of all pay linked allowances/benefits.
  • Calculation of DA on slab basis from 1/1/1986 to 31/12/1995 is time consuming
  • Revision of retirement benefits (gratuity, leave encashment)of offrs retiring after 1/1/1986
  • Revision of pension on 1/1/1986, 1/1/1996, 1/1/2006.
  • Revision of family pension based on revision of pension of offr
  • Payments to be made to legal heirs of deceased offrs
  • Interest @ 6 % per annum for upto 24 yrs in each case will have to be calculated and paid. This would be a protracted exercise taking a lot of time and involving huge manpower as each case will have to be examined/ calculated individually.
    RDOA comment. UOI is responsible for this faux pas and should do the needful and pay the offrs their legitimate dues. The Court should raise the penalty to 18% for causing unnecessary delays in implementing court orders.
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