Supreme Court Observation: Pending OROP Payments To Be Clear Soon

The defence ministry instructed the CGDA (Controller General Defence Accounts) to release all OROP arrears following the top court’s observations. The payment has to be made in a single instalment, as revealed by a government spokesperson.

The Supreme Court reprimanded the Union government which has been delaying payments to approximately 1.6 million army pensioners. The army pensioners belong to the one rank, one pension (OROP) scheme.

Taking strong exception to a letter the Supreme Court bench opted for the observation for the payments to be made at the earliest, The letter was issued by an officer in the concerned department of the ministry in which saught to extend the timeline which was issued by the court itself in January through its order.

The bench headed by CJI DY Chandrachud said, “Here, it’s not an enemy you are fighting. You are on a war against the rule of law. You are not supposed to do this… sanctity of the judicial process is supreme, everyone has to maintain it.”

The bench was seeking an explanation from the concerned secretary in the defence ministry. On Monday after the appex court’s observations, the Ministry of Defence instructed the CGDA (Controller General Defence Accounts) to release all OROP arrears that too in a single instalment itself, as per a government spokesperson. Now following the observation, all arrears which are outstanding, are to be paid by March 15, to ex-servicemen.

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Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala, are also the part of the bench who took strong exception to the above mentioned letter which was  issued by a concerned officer in the department of the ministry. This letter requested for an extension of the timeline issued by the court in its last order one month ago in January.

The credit for the observation indeed goes to the significant letter upon which the bench directed the government on January 9 to clear the pension arrears as soon as possible thus helping and supporting nearly 2.5 million ex-servicemen.