The Defense Minister referred the rank pay issue to the Attorney General for the armed forces to present their interpretation of a Supreme Court order from last year that is disputed by the defense ministry. However, similar past referrals have failed to reach equitable conclusions, as the ministry has overridden the views of the armed forces. Specifically, in 2012 the ministry continued filing appeals against a court order despite being directed not to, asked the Army to change its brief, and ultimately prevented the Army from presenting its views. Currently, the ministry only partially implemented the 2010 Supreme Court order on rank pay in a way that limits the financial impact, contradicting the spirit and intent of the court's decision.

1. Opinion: How the armed forces were deceive...
by Major Navdeep Singh -
http://www.stratpost.com/opinion-how-the-armed-forces-were-deceived-on-rank-pay
The Defense Minister A.K. Antony has referred the rank pay issue to the Attorney General, with the armed forces
getting an opportunity to brief the AG on their interpretation of the orders issued by the Supreme Court last year,
currently disputed by the defense ministry. But this reference will not necessarily lead to a resolution of the issue,
since similar measures taken earlier have failed to reach equitable conclusions. For instance, in March of 2012,
the defense minister had asked the Army and the Ministry to submit to the Solicitor General their respective views
on a disability and war injury pensions issue arising from the judgment in the case of former Vice Chief of the
Army, Lieutenant General Vijay Oberoi, and directed the ministry not to file appeals before the Supreme Court in
similar cases till the time the Solicitor General gave his opinion and the defense minister took a final decision.
Here’s what happened. Firstly of all, the ministry continued to file appeals despite the minister’s directions.
Secondly, the ministry asked the Army to ‘change’ the brief it had prepared for the Solicitor General. And then
the ministry made its own notes by subsuming and suppressing the analysis of the Army. Finally, the Army was
ultimately never provided a chance to present its views to the Solicitor General, allowing the Ministry to obtain an
opinion that opposed the interests of disabled veterans. As to rank pay, the issue was decided by the Supreme
Court in March of 2010 in favor of commissioned officers of the three services, ruling that ‘rank pay’ was not to
be deducted while fixing the salaries of defense officers. Evidently aware that their stand since the 4th Pay
Commission was no longer sustainable after the Supreme Court verdict, the defense ministry set up a committee
to figure out the financial implications of the judgement, and then, in an unprecedented move, approached the
Court asking it to take back its own order and hear the issue again. This was not a request the Court was ready to
accept and it ruled on the issue in September, 2012. The defense ministry argued that implementation of the
judgment would require rehashing of not only the 4th Pay Commission scales but also the scales devised by the
5th and 6th Pay Commissions. The ministry also said this would alter the payment of all consequential benefits to
officers and their families, as well as, affect the benefits of officers who had retired prior to 1986. But this was a
given, considering the deduction of rank pay from 4th Pay Commission scales and beyond had been declared
illegal. And as a result, the pay-scales needed to be upgraded through the three pay commissions leading to
enhancement of the pay and status of defense officers. The defense ministry was now left with no option but to
implement the judgment. But they decided to play games with it, again, when they issued their implementation
letter in December 2012. Here’s what the ministry said in the letter, purportedly to implement the Supreme Court
judgment:
….and to re-fix the initial pay of the concerned officers of the Army, Navy and Air Force in the revised scale
(integrated scale) as on 01-01-1986 as per Para 6 of those instructions without deduction of rank pay
appropriate to the rank held by the officer on 01st January 1986….

2. Opinion: How the armed forces were deceive...
by Major Navdeep Singh -
http://www.stratpost.com/opinion-how-the-armed-forces-were-deceived-on-rank-pay
For those not in a terrible hurry to read the entire Supreme Court judgment and compare it with the language
above, here’s what ministry did. It changed the language used by the Court in its judgment, when it issued this
letter. While the Court had ordered re-fixation of pay ‘with effect from 01-01-1986?, the Ministry’s letter grants it
to officers ‘as on 01-01-1986?. This subtle variation makes all the difference. The judgement which was to have a
cascading effect on pay-scales after 01-01-1986 with effect from the 4th Pay Commission, continuing till date,
now effectively applied only to those persons who were already receiving rank pay as on 01-01-1986. The letter
also states that no changes would be made in the instructions issued after the 5th and 6th Pay Commissions
except to the extent of re-fixation necessitated due to fixation as on 01 Jan 1986. This simply meant that there
would be no upgrade of scales or change in the implementation instructions except that, for those affected officers
as on 01 Jan 1986 who remained in service as on 01 Jan 1996 or 01 Jan 2006, their re-fixation within the existing
tables based on the fitment formula would be affected while switching over from 4th Pay Commission to 5th Pay
Commission and then from 5th Pay Commission to 6th Pay Commission tables, but within the same scales. This
was nothing more than a natural consequence of the stipulation of fixation as on 01 Jan 1986. With a dry,
half-hearted implementation letter, the defense ministry not only ignored the spirit and the character of the
judgement but also its own commitment before the Supreme Court. The ministry has also tried to tacitly impose
litigation on affected officers to get similar exactly parallel anomalies of the successive pay commissions
corrected. But no change in pay scale, status or even the scales after the 4th, 5th and 6th Pay Commissions has
been notified. Clearly, getting the intentional anomaly rectified is a tough call since it involves not only the
correction of the scales but also the restoration of the status of defense officers which has been on a constant
downward slide after the 4th Pay Commission. The problem also remains that the defense services, especially till
the last Pay Commission, were guilty of a failure to appreciate the impact of the actions of the bureaucracy
affecting them. Some serving officers also never had the foresight to analyze how such issues would affect future
generations as well as retirees, which would someday include their own selves. The ministry leadership appears
to be overly reliant on the diligence of its junior bureaucracy and the Defense Accounts Department, which
portrays an attitude of opposition to military pay upgrades. For instance, most of the letters issued in pay and
pension matters by the defense ministry are drafted by the office of the Controller General of Defense Accounts,
including the letter issued on the rank pay issue. It might not be politically correct to say this, but to get anything
fair out of the bureaucratic retinue in the defense ministry, the armed forces need to be smarter and more artful in
their pursuit of this issue. Serving officers need to remember that they too will be veterans one day and their
interests are common to them.
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