Now that the official act of implementing the judgement of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India, or an interpretation of the judgement, at any rate, relating to the rank pay issue, has been set in motion through the issue of a Government letter, there are, understandably, expressions of views, in the press and on the blogosphere, as to how the implementation meets or does not meet the letter and spirit of the judgement.
It would be extremely unwise to jump to conclusions and apply a layman's reasoning to an issue that has seen the engagement of some of the soundest and ablest legal minds during the course of a protracted litigation relating to the matter in the highest court of the land. In any case, in the absence of the complete details of arguments and counter-arguments, it's virtually impossible to arrive at a conjecture as to what was prayed for, what was finally granted and how faithful is the implementation to the intent of the judgement.
Of course there are doubts and queries. These grey areas need to be identified and logical analysis applied to ascertain whether there is actually a shortfall and what are the available remedies, if any.
With that aim in mind, the following list could serve as a starting point for clearly documenting the doubts:
*How does the implementation propose to resolve the matter of deduction of rank pay at the time of V CPC?
**This is relevant in context of that part of the judgement which clearly directs that rank pay be given retrospectively from 01-01-1986? The judgement does not say "give rank pay retrospectively from 01 Jan 86 to 31 Dec 95" or "give rank pay retrospectively from 01 Jan 86 for the IV CPC fixation".
**It needs to be recalled in this context that at the time of V CPC, for determining emoluments as on 01 Jan 96, the un-revised basic pay and the old rank pay formed part of the calculation.
**Shouldn't the emoluments as on 01 Jan 96 have included the new rank pay and not the old rank pay? Let's not forget, at the time of IV CPC the new rank pay as on 01 Jan 86 was to be part of the calculation for revision of emoluments.
**Then, the calculation for V CPC involved subtracting the new rank pay from the calculated amount.
**Thus can we say that rank pay amounting to [(revised rank pay)+{(revised rank pay)-(old rank pay)}] was "not given" at the time of V CPC and ought now to "be given" in the implementation in context of the judgement?
**This matter was previously touched upon here.
*How is the issue relating to the payscales proposed to be resolved?
**How have the rank stages been established for the 'running' payscale of IV CPC without including the element of rank pay?
**Does the judgement say "give rank pay retrospectively from 01 Jan 86 but do not incorporate it in the payscale"?
**Wouldn't giving the revised basic, with rank pay added' to a new promotee in ranks of Capt to Brig as on 01 Jan 86, discriminate against subsequent promotees who would get basic pay only applicable to the starting stage of the rank in the payscale?
**This issue was previously referred to here.
There would be issues related to pre 86 retirees, to those who joined after 01 Jan 86. As to how the implementation precisely affect these parties also needs to be carefully evaluated.
