Centre moves SC seeking three months more to clear OROP arrears

The Centre has moved the Supreme Court seeking extension of time till March 15 2023 for payment of arrears of One RankOne Pension OROP scheme to all eligible pensioners of the armed forcesThis is the second extension sought by the Union government to pay the arrears after it had first moved the top court in June and sought three months to compute and make paymentThe top court which had on March 16 upheld the OROP principle adopted by the Centre saying it does not suffer from any constitutional infirmity and is not arbitrary had asked the government to pay the arrears within three monthsIn its fresh application the Centre said the Comptroller General of Defence Accounts CGDA office was requested by the Department of ExServicemen Welfare DESW of Ministry of Defence to prepare the tables for next revision of pension in March 2022 immediately after the judgement of the apex court dated March 16 2022The CGDA office had raised some issues and sought clarifications from the department To quickly resolve the issues the department convened a meeting with concerned stakeholders and necessary clarifications were issued in April 2022 it said The Centre said after incorporating the comments received from both the stakeholder departments a final cabinet note was preparedAfter approval of cabinet various types of pension tables are required to be prepared by CGDA which itself is a time consuming process and needs further extension of time up to March 15 2023 it saidAlso Read Supreme Court grants bail to convict in Godhra train coach burning caseThe government said it is seriously processing the matter in order to comply with the judgement and order passed by the court which will take some more time for implementation It sought further extension of time up to March 15 2023Underlining that the delay is neither deliberate nor intentional the government said the process of implementing the top courts order is in an advanced stage and it shall suffer irreparable loss and injury if the present application is not allowed in the interest of justiceThe top court which heard the first application for extension of time filed on June 9 had passed an order on September 16 and said The time period of three months which was fixed in the judgement dated March 16 is extended by a period of three months from todayThe top courts March 16 verdict came on the plea filed by the Indian Exservicemen Movement IESM through advocate Balaji Srinivasan against the Centres formulaIt had said in terms of the communication dated November 7 2015 the benefit of OROP was to be effected from July 1 2014 and the communication states that in future the pension would be refixed every five yearsSuch an exercise has remained to be carried out after the expiry of five years possibly because of the pendency of the present proceedings the bench had said adding We accordingly order and direct that in terms of the communication dated November 7 2015 a refixation exercise shall be carried out from July 1 2019 upon the expiry of five yearsArrears payable to all eligible pensioners of the armed forces shall be computed and paid over accordingly within a period of three months it had saidThis 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