It will be some time before all the affected Officers of the Indian Armed Forces, serving and retired, are presented with the exact norms of calculating their arrears of pay and pension, following the recent judgement of the Hon'ble Supreme Court. How the administrative machinery chooses to interpret the judgement would be revealed only when the Government issues formal orders to the disbursing agencies on the manner of calculating of arrears and effecting of payment.
The judgement generated megatons of enthusiasm and a virtual explosion of opinions and theories, not all based on hard facts or the soundest of reasoning. But, these did have one positive effect viz., of prompting many to think of what actually transpired at the time of fixation of pay based on recommendations of IV CPC. Now opinions are being heard or read round the clock that similar, or worse, anomalies arose due to implementation of V and VI CPCs.
It begins to appear now that the issue was not merely of adding or subtracting the rank pay to the new running scale introduced at the time of IV CPC. Certainly, the incorrect subtraction of rank pay from emoluments used for fixing the revised pay was central to the litigation. But, a reference to the old pay-fixation statement of IV CPC reveals how, even without getting into the issue of rank pay, the re-fixed pay, in many cases, was lower than the formula of [Basic_Pay+DA+IR+20%Basic_Pay] used. An example was cited online as to how the sum of Rs.3555/- arrived at in the case of one Major, was rounded off to Rs. 3400/- and NOT to the next higher stage of 3600/-, or even the one lower stage of Rs. 3500/-, in the pay-scale of Rs 2300-100-3900-150-4200-EB-150-5100 introduced at that time.
It would appear the basis of such fixations was the running payscale, which itself was defined without taking the rank-pay into account. The minimum, starting pay for each rank was thus fixed in this running payscale without taking into account the rank pay, which the judgement has now clearly established as being part of basic pay.
Now, of course, the formula for calculating emoluments itself needs to be revised in line with the judgement as pointed out in the previous blog post. As to how fixations need to be effected keeping the payscale and minimum-pay issues in view is still not clear. How wide the ramifications could be can be gleaned from the screenshot of a short conversation on a chatroll.
Dear Sunlit,
ReplyDeleteWas it unambiguously known that the Rank Pay was to be added at each of the stages of each rank to the running(Integrated) Pay Scale?
The sums deducted from each ' refixed'pay in the IV CPC Scale were different for different ranks and also different from the respective rank pays.What was deducted in each case is the sum needed to bring the pay to correspond to the number of years in that rank. For example the pay of a Lt Col with two years in that rank was Rs.4200.
Therefore the sum deducted was so adjusted to remove the amount in excess of Rs.4200.
Therefore it is necessary to know if the Running Pay Scale of the IV CPC will be revised to include the rank pay at each stage.
Thus the corrected pay could be either
1. the amount cropped off to make the pay correspond to the scaled pay.
OR
2.The pay in the pay scale corresponding to the number of years in that rank plus the rank pay.
Also there is another lurking danger.The pay in the IV CPC , even without the rank pay added , reached the stagnation point of 5100 very fast , in many cases.If the rank pay is aded many Lt Col of IV CPC would hit the stagnation point in the third year in that rank and thereafter they would get no more benefit( save for the increment in rank pay, which is not subject to the stagnation rule) till they make it to the Maj Gen.
There is also the doubt if any addition will accrue to those who had got a promotion during the regime of IV CPC.
The only beneficial case to all is if the Running Pay Scale gets modified by the addition of the Rank Pay at each stage.
Does anyone have any idea as to how Maj AK Dhanapalan's arrears were calculated?
@karrivr: It is not clear whether or not the running payscale of IV CPC would have to be revised. It starts with the basic pay of 2nd Lt at which point there was no confusion about rank pay.
DeleteOr maybe, the starting point itself was fixed lower than what it should have been.
If the revised pay has to be fixed to the point in that running payscale corresponding to one's years in a rank, then no matter how many times one adds the rank pay to the calculation of the sum of emoluments, the result would be the same as that at the time of calculation at the time of pay fixation during implementation of IV CPC. In that case Maj Dhanapalan would not have got any arrears.
Maybe the minimum pay for each rank in that running payscale would need to be revised by including rank pay in the 20% component of the calculation.
Judgements of the Hon'ble High Court of Kerala in Maj Dhanapalan's petition, the additional affidavit filed by UOI in the present case in the Hon'ble Supreme Court, the MOD letters on pay-fixation in 1986-87 and the IV CPC report would need to be referred to arrive at some sort of idea.
But, RDOA would be the best source for this information as they have been directly involved in the litigation just concluded. Their petition would have included details of how exactly the basic is required to be re-fixed
Dear Sunlit,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reply.
A viewer had offered to send you a copy of the affidavit submitted by the UoI(MoD)in the Rank Pay case.
If you have it now you may put it on this blog for reference.
I had read the two judgements of Maj. Dhanapalan's case in the Kerala High Court.
I shall search the archives to send them to you.
What is the mail Id ?
Till then it is reasonable to assume that Rank Pay will be added in toto to the pay in IV CPC, thus changing the Running Pay Scale itself.
The point, as all of us are harping again is, that not only the Rank Pay but also a sum to crop the caculated pay to fit into the IV CPC Pay Scale were deducted.
You might have noticed that in the fitment of VI CPC( Refer SAI 2/S/08) care was exercised by the GOI not to repeat this error.Those already serving were migrated with their full equivalent pay into PB3 or 4 and the New Pay Band was applicable only to those who are commissioned after 2006.
IVth CPC .The concept and approach of integrated pay scale up to rk of Brig AND SEPARATE rk pays giving higher rank pay for higher ranks was fine and in consistence with all those projections of pyramid like,one in three getting promotions....etc.But this contention and earlier projections were over looked,negated ,neglected and denied the inherent provision of integrated pay proportional to length of service as an officer up to rk of Brig.Fixation is only a transitory processes-transition processes cannot violate or negate those fundamental rules of 4th CPC as approved by CABINET,GOI.
ReplyDeleteIn that act of FIXATION,those wings/depts incl svc HQs have colluded and fixed THAT FAMOUS FIXING of the century.In that, by denying legitimate integrated pay to officers of Lt Col and below and giving some temporary benefit to newly promoted Col &Brig (causing loss to senior Cols & Brigs ),has caused the bungling. The result is SUPREME COURT JUDGEMENT-come by indirect route of RANK PAY case ,DHANAPLAN-KERALA HIGH COURT -SUPREME COURt-RDOA...etc.
When NATURAL/LOGICAL TRUTHS ARE VIOLATED ,things like this surface -all complications. simple principle and natural rules-basic pay is proportional to length of service as prevailing in all other GOI services-NFFU relevance.Rank or appointment pay can be different or higher.WITH THE PREMISE THAT A LOWER RANK OFFICER WITH MORE SERVICE CANNOT BE GIVEN HIGHER BASIC PAY THAN HIGHER RANK OFFICER WITH LESS (MUCH LESS)SERVICE- there can be no satisfactory solution and we will be going in circles - where we were!
Now the processes of unwinding those knots would be easy if we understand those basic concepts and approaches.The purpose of this comment is bring in relevance to the issues.thank you all.