Supreme Court To Decide Whether Short Service Commissioned Officers In Forces Should Get Provident Fund And Pension Benefits
The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the Short Service Commissioned Officers should be covered under the Old Pension Scheme, the new National Pension Schemes and the Contributory Provident Funds.
A writ petition was filed by 416 serving and retired Short Service Commissioned Officers (‘SSCOs’) from all arms, services, branches, cadres and departments of the Indian Army, Air Force and Navy seeking redressal of their plight of being the only class of government officials in the entire nation who are deprived of benefits under schemes.
The Bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra issued the notice in the matter.
Senior Advocate Gopal Shankarnarayanan appeared for the Petitioners.
The Petition filed under Article 32 of the Constitution stated, “The Defence Accounts Department Office Manual Part V For CDA (Funds) (Revised Edition 2016), issued by the government, mandates provision of a Contributory Provident Fund for non-pensionable employees of the Armed Forces. Accordingly, the petitioners and other similarly placed SSCOs ought to have been granted government contribution into their Contributory Provident Fund accounts since the very inception of their services as SSCOs. Government Servants who are ineligible to receive pension get the benefit of Contributory Provident Fund, however, the SSCOs are not granted the same either and thus, have to face grave financial insecurity after retirement till the time they are able to secure, out of their own efforts, a well-paying job/work to support the livelihood of their family.”
The Petitioners submitted that there are around 1.5 crores of government servants out of which approx. 12 thousand SSCOs have been excluded from all forms of post-retirement pensionary benefits including above mentioned schemes without any reasonable differentia.
The Petitioners also said that not being covered under the ambit of either the NPS or the Contributory Provident Fund, the SSCOs have constantly been facing the plight of financial insecurity after retirement from service. Certain Petitioners herein, during the period between 2020 – 2023, had submitted their grievances and the request to have the benefits under the NPS extended to the SSCOs before the Open Forum of Chief of Air Staff, however, their submissions were either met with unsatisfactory arbitrary replies.
The Plea said, “There is no difference between SSCOs and Permanent Commissioned officers in terms of selection procedure, physical and medical standards, mandatory tests, postings, duties, liabilities, etc. There is also no difference between SSCOs and Permanent Commissioned officers in terms of their subjection to service acts such as the Army Act, 1950; Air Force Act, 1950 and the Navy Act, 1957 and Rules and Regulations made under the said Acts. There is also no difference between SSCOs and Permanent Commissioned officers in terms of their subjection to other service rules, regulations, and policies governing their duties, liabilities and discipline. There is also no difference between SSCOs and Permanent Commissioned officers in terms of liability to be sent to battlefields, warzones, Counter-Intelligence or Counter-Terrorist operations. Therefore, there is no reasonable classification or difference in the kind, quality and nature of service being rendered by SSCOs and Permanent Commissioned Officers towards the safety and security of the country and as such SSCOs should be considered entitled to retirement/NPS/Contributory Fund benefits on par with other central government servants.”
Further, it was alleged that there are also provisions made by the Government for the grant of regular pension to defence personnel who had initially been recruited as Other Rank/Persons below Officer Rank in the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force, who were subsequently granted a commission as Officer and collectively served for a minimum period of 12 years (including one year of pre-commissioning training). However, by contrast, SSCOs serving for even 14 years of commissioned service are still not being granted pension, the plea said.
The petitioners have sought grants of post-retirement pension benefits of these schemes along with arrears of interest, retrospectively and directions to the Government to carry out necessary changes in the regulations.
Cause Title: Maj Kavish Aggarwala & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors.
Appearances:
Petitioners: Senior Advocate Gopal Sankarnarayanan, Advocates Raj Kamal, Jayesh H Unnikrishnan, Shivani Vij, Amish Aggarwala, Kuldeep Jauhari, Anubhav Tyagi, Antara Mishra, Nishant Sharma, Aprajita Tyagi, Aseem Ahuja, Karan Ahuja and Alka Nupur Singh.
