Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 20

The Ministry of Defence has issued orders to hike the pension of officers of the rank of Major Generals and equivalent who were drawing pension lower than that of subordinate rank of Brigadier because of anomalies in implementation of successive pay commission recommendations.The affected officers had sought judicial redressal of their grievance and moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court. In 2008, the Supreme Court upheld the high court’s order and laid down guidelines for fixation of pension of Major Generals with effect from January 1, 1996, the date of applicability of the Fifth Pay Commission, at rates higher than that of Brigadiers.A group of 52 Major Generals who had then moved the court would benefit from the apex court order. A similar situation arose when the Sixth Pay Commission was implemented and 57 affected Major Generals, who had retired prior to 2006, moved the Chandigarh Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal.In 2010, the tribunal ruled in their favour in terms of the Supreme Court’s earlier orders, following which the Union Government again moved the apex court in 2011. The matter is pending before the court and in the interim, the MoD implemented the tribunal’s decision only for the litigants in the said case but not for other similarly placed pensioners and family pensioners. In December 2017, the Supreme Court pointed out that the decision should have been implemented for all similarly placed officers and not only for litigants, after which the government sought time to do the needful.An April 16 MoD letter states that “it has been decided to allow similar benefit of revision of pension and family pension to all Major Generals and equivalent ranks in the Air Force and the Navy who retired prior to 2006”. The benefits will be with effect from January 1, 2006, the date of implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission.