Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much
- Helen Keller
Ever since the status update of 11.3.2013, this author has been inundated with calls, emails asking for options that could be exercised. The similarity of suggestions in these calls and emails is offset to some extent by spice of being abused for keeping quiet.
To each caller and e-mailer, this author offers profuse apologies. This author is gravely lacking in the expertise of legal procedures and requirements. One can only search the World Wide Web and make a patchwork quilt that would neither be nice to look at nor meet the requirements of providing warmth and comfort.
Yet one has to respond to the calls and emails. So, with profuse apologies both for lacking legal expertise and also if one is unknowingly, unintentionally committing contempt, here is what this author thinks: -
Option 1 - Sit and wait till 31.5.2013 to see if UoI keeps its word of making payments to all serving & retired Armed Forces officers and the next-of-kin of deceased officers. If one does so then how does one approach the Hon'ble Supreme Court? Would the litigants be asked questions such as: -
Why are we waking up after the whole process has been completed?
Doesn't it mean that UoI will have to start all over again and this may take forever?
If our points legally tenable, then what prevented us from using due processes of law?
Or has the greed of a few thousands/lakh made us seek more?
And there is always the chance that our approach to the Hon'ble Court could suffer the same fate as UoI's SLP in the year 2005! Dismissed!!
Option 2 - File an Interlocutory Application immediately praying the Hon'ble Supreme Court for clarifications in its judgments of 8.3.2010 and 4.9.2012. This process was resorted to by the UoI as the respondent in the 2G case praying for a clarification.
If an IA is filed then for it to be admitted (hope it is the correct terminology), the applicant will probably have to provide grounds based on facts already available or obtained prior to the filing of the IA (and there appears to be a 30 day limit as was stated in the MoD file notes leading to the UoI's decision to file IA No.9 of 2010 in TP (C) 56 of 2007).
If the IA is admitted one hopes (for one's own aural and physical safety, it is), then we would all have incontrovertible clarity on many doubts -
Is restoration of deduction of Rank pay applicable only for the period 1.1.1986 to 31.12.1995;
Is restoration also applicable from 1.1.1996 to 31.12.2005; Any effect from 1.1.2006? etc
Will the integrated pay scale have to be revised upwards to accommodate the correction; Para 30 (a) of the Additional Affidavit implies it as it states
"(a)
In the present matter, implementing the Hon’ble
Court order dated 8-3-2010 would mean re-fixation of pay of not only the
officers entitled to Rank Pay, but pay scales of other personnel above and
below such officers would have to be revised w.e.f. 1.1.1986 firstly, and then
from 1.1.1996 and 1.1.2006, i.e. at the time of subsequent pay revisions.
Similar process would be carried out for revision of pension of the retired
personnel. Any changes at one place will inevitably have impact on horizontal
and vertical parities thereby changing the overall pay structure by the 4th
CPC."
(emphasis by author)
Is it legally correct for Cols and Brigs (and equivalents) to lose bits and pieces of Rank Pay because of the ceiling in the integrated pay scale (and some statements and calculation sheets accompanying payment of arrears indicate that) etc etc
One regrets that one does not have the affidavits, counter-affidavits, additional affidavits filed by the UoI & Ors and N. K. Nair & Ors to write a more comprehensive and objective analysis.
The author has filed many RTI applications and will post them as when replies are received.
To those who are vocabulary disabled - there are nice, gentle words even for chiding and finding fault than those questioning my genealogy, ancestry etc !!!!!!!!!!!
30 days will end on 10.4.2013.
Till then, keep the faith! And the Hopes!
No comments:
Post a Comment