Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful, and murder
respectable.
- George Orwell
[Head note: Volume III of the 3rd
CPC Report is available with Digital Library of India and also available with
this author, if requested for.]
If the huge PMO can be misinformed, [recall ‘swachh’
village Jayapur’s toilets sans water supply or the ‘electrified’ Nagla Fatela
in Hathras region with its ‘katia’ connections] and not do a ‘fact check’, why blame
senior and retired Armed Forces Veterans, placing unflinching faith in their
‘personal knowledge’, memory, emotions and sentiments?
As a comment
on the politicians and Competent Civil Authority is not germane to the
subsequent encounter with truth, let us confine ourselves to facts to debunk
fiction masquerading as facts.
Many senior
Veterans appear not to be in the habit of doing a fact check now that they do
not have the services of their staff, who would have placed a ‘bulleted
brief’ for their ‘information and
necessary action.’ Deprived of diligent staff work, it becomes imperative to do
a fact check before putting pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard. If only
they had done a ‘fact check,’ it would have given them information to consider
their value of their assertions.
Take the
senior Veteran who wrote with feeling that the Chiefs of the Armed Forces have
been downgraded from No. 2 in the WoP to No. 12, losing sight of the fact that
after independence we have Constitutional office bearers like the President
(No.1), Vice President (No. 2), Prime Minister (No.3), Governors, Speaker of
the Lok Sabha, Chief Justice of India etc. A little more reading would have
revealed that in UK the Lord Admiral is on page 3 of the protocol list, and in
USA, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is 53rd, even below the Post
Master-General (who is at position No. 50).
But, Senior
Veteran Armed Forces officers have spoken or written ‘manufactured facts,’ only
to fight, with a violence of words, their unmasking in silent embarrassment.
They do not seem to mind that they are feeding a frenzy of misinformation and
the consequences could be spread of disaffection. It could be the shorter
attention to detail span, made worse by relatively a low knowledge base, and readiness
to believe anything that either boosts ‘the cause’ or denigrates the other side.
Take the
senior Lt Gen who was allegedly told by a PSO of Army HQ about ‘pronouncements’
of another Veteran ‘making things difficult for Tri-Services Pay Cells in their
arguments with the Govt.’ How is it that the PSO was not asked why the Armed
Forces with its huge HQ staff was unable to counter one individual? The veteran
Lt Gen said that he used “personal knowledge” to refute a fact that Armed Forces
officers were always reckoned to be equated with IPS in the matter of pay and
allowances.
That senior Lt
Gen who took upon himself to refute from ‘his personal knowledge’ that Armed
Forces Officers’ pay was related to Class I and IPS officers without either any
document to back him or having read Paras 6, 7 & 8 of Chapter 50 of the 3rd
CPC Report, (a copy of the Report emailed to him) which state, inter alia: -
6. The
basic proposal made by the Services with regard to pay scales of Services
officers is that the relativity established for this purpose between the
Services officers and officers of Class I Central Services and the Indian
Police Service (IPS) was wrong. They have argued that the Defence Services
Officers and IPS officers should not be equated as their methods of
recruitment, job content and conditions of service are completely different and
that the functional roles of the two Services are not comparable. According to
them, the Services officers should be equated with the officers of the Indian
Administrative Service on the basis of the content of the profession of
military officership (sic), the
qualification of military officers today and their responsibilities. As for
factors like turbulence, exposure to hazards and risks and truncated career,
the Services feel that these should be compensated by grant of separate
allowances and liberal retirement benefits.
7. In
support of their demand, the Services have asserted that in the past their pay
scales were fixed in comparison with pay scales prescribed for the highest
civil service. This is not borne out by our examination. We find that the
pattern of remuneration adopted for KCIOs differed from that applicable to
officers of the Indian Civil Service and in fact the nexus was between the pay and
allowances of British officers serving in the Indian Army and those of KCIOs. This is also evident from factual
information furnished by the Services (emphasis supplied).
8. The
Post War Pay Committee had explained that they framed their proposals for
Service officers “having regard to the
recommendations of the (1st) Central Pay Commission and particularly
to the scales proposed for the Class I and all-India Police Service (Para 9
of Enclosure 1B of the Summary put up by the Chairman, Post War Pay
Committee).” These proposals were
formally approved by the Service Headquarters. The Raghuramaiah Committee
which was appointed after the Second Pay Commission mentioned (Paragraph 25 of
the Report of the Departmental Pay Committee (Raghuramaiah Committee) as
follows: -
“We
consider that the accepted parallel between Defence Service officers and Class
I Service of the Central Government, particularly the Indian Police Service
should be continued.”
We
find that on both these bodies the Services were represented and it is thus
evident that the existing relativity between Service officers and the officers
of Class I and the IPS came to be established by the bodies on which the
Services were fully represented so that the Services Headquarters should be deemed
to be parties to the conclusions arrived at. It is only from 1962 when the
maximum of the Major’s scale was fixed at the same level as that of the senior
scale of the IPS (which was made slightly higher than the senior scale of Class
I Central Services that this broad relativity acquired a new preciseness and
modifications in the IPS scale became the raison d’etre for changes in the
Armed Forces scales at corresponding levels” (emphasis supplied).
Two others
senior Veterans stated, in different literary pieces, that the Armed Forces had
OROP from 1947 till 1972. Of these two, the former at his effusive best, stated
that while the Armed Forces brought glory to India in 1971, the 3rd
CPC rewarded us by lowering pay, pensions and ‘izzat.’ The other stated the
same as authoritatively, adding (for authenticity?) that “we were governed by
Separate Pay Commissions till the 3rd CPC.”
Facts are as
follows: -
Prior to 3rd
CPC the Armed Forces proposals for pay, allowances and pensions were not examined/recommended
by separate Pay Commissions but by the Post War Pay Committee in 1947, by the
Armed Forces Pension Review Committee in 1949-50, by the Raghuramiah Committee
in 1960 and the Kamath Committee in 1968,
It is recorded
that every one of these Committees had senior officers of the Armed Forces as
members, and finally
There was an Expert Cell of the Armed
Forces to assist the 3rd CPC set up in August 1970 comprising three
senior Services officers of the level of Major Generals, and the Expert Cell
submitted its report in June 1971.
[Chapter 48
titled Reference and Procedure, Vol III of 3rd CPC Report.]
Armed Forces
personnel had a Standard Pension and not OROP till 4th CPC. The Veterans
might want to know what Standard Pension meant. Standard Pension was a fixed
amount for each rank irrespective of the numbers of years of service in that
rank above a minimum required to be eligible for pension. For example all
Captains with 20 years or more of service were given a Standard pension of Rs
300 per month. In Para 7 of the Chapter 53 of Vol III of the 3rd CPC
report is this statement: -
“7. Although the Services favour
the continuance of the existing standard rate system, they have pointed out
that the pension earned by a Service
officer is related to the minimum service prescribed for the rank and not
increased if the actual period of qualifying service rendered by him is more”
(emphasis supplied).
The First Anomaly and No Defenders of ‘The Cause”
Why haven’t votaries
and defenders of traditional parities brought out the deprivation of the ‘traditional’ but higher Basic pay for Flying Branch and
Naval Aviators from Plt Officer to Wing Commander and Naval equivalents from
the 4th CPC onwards? (Emphasis supplied).
It is a
recorded fact that prior to 3rd CPC, all Armed Forces officers,
other than Flying Branch and Naval Aviators, started with Basic Pay of Rs 400
for 2nd Lt. 3rd CPC recommended a start of Basic Pay Rs
750 for 2nd Lt.
On the other
hand a Plt Offr/Actg Sub Lt of the Flying Branch/Naval Aviator started at Rs
475 prior to the 3rd CPC, and 3rd CPC recommended that their
Basic Pay start at Rs 800.
A deprivation of 11% (approx) in start of
Basic Pay! Why hasn’t this be raised as an anomaly in the 4th or
subsequent CPC? Why, for sake of “traditional parity” demand that the advantage
of a higher basic pay be restored for
officers of the Air Force’s Flying Branch, Naval Aviators, and now Army
Aviation Corps from Lts to Lt Cols as it was before 4th CPC?
Don’t believe this
post? Read Para 19 to 32 of Chapter 50, Service Officers Pay, Officers of
General cadre and Pay of Special Groups in the Third CPC Report respectively.
Is it because one
PCC had ‘reportedly’ recommended for inclusion in the JSM that Flying Pay
should not be paid to Air Commodores (Brig) and above because they don’t do
“active flying.’ That is also ‘reported’ to have recommended a sector-wise
Flying pay with those flying in Siachen getting a higher Flying Pay!
Implementation of that recommendation would have led to a repeat of the
situation when different rates of flying pay were suggested for fighter pilots,
transport aircraft and helicopter pilots and navigators leading to fire
fighting by VCAS and several AOsC-in-C in 1998.
“Resign, Resign, Resign” Goes the Cry, But what does it entail
Then there are Veterans egging on
the Chief (s) to resign. Here is another fact check: -
Pension
Regulations for the Army – Part I (Revised 2008), and
Admiral DK Joshi's resignation story is real eye opener. Everyone shouts for the resignations of the Chiefs in the cause of gains in veteran's pensions not knowing that the three Chiefs will be deprived their pensions.
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