(1)
In its latest decision titled AN Sachdeva Vs MDU, Rohtak, the Supreme
Court has once again reiterated that cut-off dates cannot come in the way of
upward liberalization of pensionary benefits. The Apex Court, after going into
the length and breadth of the issue and all past decisions on the subject, has
again come to the conclusion that retirees retiring prior to the cut-off date
of liberalization of a pensionary scheme would also be entitled to the said benefits
with monetary benefits from the said cut-off date which happened to be 2001 in this
case.
The said issue had been decided
by the Punjab & Haryana High Court against pensioners of the Maharishi
Dayanand University, Rohtak, Haryana, but the Supreme Court has overturned the
decision of the High Court.
The decision can be accessed by clicking here.
(2)
Chain mails are floating
referring to a circular issued by the PCDA(P) stating that the MoD has issued
orders concerning the implementation of the decision of the Supreme Court regarding grant of arrears from 01-01-2006 rather than 24-09-2012. The news is
incorrect. The said circular only concerns defence civilian pensioners based on
the letter issued for civilian pensioners by the Department of Pension and Pensioners’’
Welfare (DoPPW). It may kindly be understood that the PCDA(P) has no authority
to issue circulars on its own till the time the MoD issues a Government letter
to the said effect. However, the good news is that the MoD is also working on
the same and the letter should be out soon. Some added time after the issuance
of the DoPPW letter was expected to be taken by the MoD since there are certain
additional issues to be addressed by the MoD over and above the ones in the
DoPPW letter and a mutatis-mutandis
letter could not have been issued. For example, the MoD is to add the Military Service
Pay (MSP) also in addition to the elements in the civil letter and then unlike
civil pensioners, separate tables would have to be ultimately prepared by the
Defence Accounts Department for various ranks and different categories which
are not applicable on the civil side. Moreover, the benefit of the upward
revision would be differently applied to ranks other than Commissioned Officers
since they had been granted pensions based on the maximum of 5th CPC
scales fitted into the 6th CPC pay bands with effect from 01-07-2009
while officers and all civil employees were granted pensions based on minimum of
pay of the pay bands. The comprehensive letter alongwith comprehensive tables
would definitely be issued in due course and we would have to be a little
patient about the same.
It is correct, rank ,group,services length ,wighteg all to be taken in consedaration ,thank U major
ReplyDeleteThanks Maj Navdeep for the information. Hope order/circular/table shall include Disability pension revision along with this or separate orders on it will follow.
ReplyDeleteThe table issued earlier should apply here also because only the date of commencement has changed from 23.9.2012 to 1.1 2006.I am not aware of any other change.
ReplyDeleteDear Maj Navdeep
ReplyDeleteWE are looking up to hearing your views on the recent Rank pay judgement by the honorable SC
Thanks Buddy
ReplyDeleteMaj Navdeep,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the information.
Hope MOD will issue the letter
and we will see it on your blog soon.
The hard work and your selfless dedication towards betterment of the servicemen is indeed commendable. At long last the awakening of the defense community, for safeguarding their basic rights, looks on the horizon and you are the genesis of it. Thanx.
ReplyDeleteAnimesh
Dear Mr Navdeep
ReplyDeleteThank you for the clarification we simply start to calculate. Even we start to get the multification factor in the Web. We will have to wait until the comprehensive tables are issued.
Thank you for your help and keep up the good work you inspire the whole ESM community.
Good luck God bless
Maj Navdeep sir thank you for interesting update...
ReplyDeletewith reference to pre-2006 OR's(pbor) pension the earlier circular 430,482 and 501 issued by pcda (p) were issued on the basis of weightage and not w.r.t. minimum fitment formula.
SO IT SEEMS THIS UPDATE IS FOR ALL WHO HAVE RENDERED 33 YRS OF QUALIFYING SERVICE AND NOT APPLICABLE TO ALL WHO HAVE RENDERED LESS THEN 33 YRS OF SERVICE AND WHOSE PENSION IS REDUCED PRO-RATE.
I guess the government circular for implementation of the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court regarding grant of arrears from 01-01-2006 rather than 24-09-2012 should not take much time as it will just be a modification of the earlier circular.
ReplyDeleteDear Navdeep, The PCDA(p) has already made tables and paid from 24-9-2012 taking into consideration all factors such as grade pay and mil service pay. What is required is to amend the date to 01-01-2006 and that solves the problem. It seems there is some thing deeper reason for the delay which we are unable to figure it out.
ReplyDeleteAre the orders issued by MOD for payment of revised minimum guaranteed pension wef
ReplyDelete1-1-2006 instead of 24-9-2012 ?
Subject : MoD orders issued for implementation of decision of the Supreme Court granting arrears of pension from 01 Jan 2006 rather than 24 Sept 2012.
ReplyDeleteCircular 547 of PCDA(penions) dated 11 Sep 2015 ,issued based on MOD letter of 03sep 2015 FOR JCO/NCO/OR & Their family pensioners are granting them arrears of pension from 01 Jan 2006 to 30June 2009, at the scale existing for 01 Jul 2009 instead granting the” arrears from 1/1/2006 to 23 Sep 2012 on the existing scale wef 24/09/2012.
Two pertinent points to note are , it is against basic principle of justice, when :-
(a) Decision of the Supreme Court states on , granting arrears of pension from 01 Jan 2006 rather than 24 Sept 2012.
(b) Defence civilian-Pensioners , vide PCDA(Pensions) Circular C-144 dated 14 Aug are granted arrears of pension from 01 Jan 2006 rather than 24 Sept 2012.
(c) The Commissioned officers ,Vide PCDA(Pensions) Circular 548 dated 11 Sep 2015 are granted arrears of pension from 01 Jan 2006 rather than 24 Sept 2012.
The above arbitrary order for JCO/NCO/OR , by the MOD dated 03 sep 2015 and subsequent circular -547 dated 11 Sep of PCDA(pensions) based on the cited MOD order leads to disparities of such an arrear to JCO/NCO/OR and their family pensioners in the very back drop of the supreme court decision.
This needs rectification.
This comment comes a bit late considering the date of this blog-post, but I feel it is very relevant to the two subjects highlighted in the updates.
ReplyDeleteNow that the GOI letter on pension revision from 2006 has been issued, followed by the PCDA circular, it is very clear that there is no respite from discrimination to older Major retirees with more than 20 years and 26 years of service. They have not been accorded parity of pension from 01 Jan 2006 with pre 2006 Lt Col retiree pensions (service of 20 years or more) or with pre 2006 Col retiree pensions (service of 26 years or more).
The same applies to pre 2006, in fact pre Dec 2004, Lt Col retirees with more than 26 years who could have hoped for a parity with post Dec 2004 and pre 2006 Col pensions. Perhaps, that would have been too much to expect and we should be grateful for a HSC order that at least made them change the date of revised pensions to 01 Jan 2006 in place of Sep 2012.
But there are a lot of Officers affected in this manner. They would be greatly benefited by advice from Maj Navdeep if there is a basis for some action to correct this anomalous situation, as it appears to be discrimination based on an arbitrary date, whether for cadre revision implementation or AVS-I implementation, both having been implemented retrospectively in a manner to divide retirees into two sub-groups.
For reference, here is a link to some aspects of this matter I had attempted to highlight in this blog post.