Army hopes pay panel untangles rank pay knot

Govt fears massive payouts on account of 20-year dues.

Army Chief General JJ Singh today inaugurated a brainstorming session by an Army-sponsored thinktank, the Centre for Land Warfare (CLAWS), to frame demands from the 6th Pay Commission.

With the defence services constituting half the pay commission's Rs 33 lakh beneficiaries, resonating through its deliberations will be an astonishing error in calculation that was made two decades ago after the 4th Pay Commission's recommendations in 1986.

The error related to rank pay, granted to officers from captain to brigadier, but in reality, paid after first subtracting it from their basic salaries.

This despite the fact that rank pay was something given to the Army officers in addition to the existing pay scales.

A retired officer, Captain Dhanapalan, took the matter to the Kerala High Court, which ruled that the authorities "had completely misunderstood the scope of extending the benefit of the payment of rank pay."

The Supreme Court rejected the government's appeal last July, a ruling which can benefit almost every military officer who has worn a uniform since 1986.

For the government, this would be a heavy financial burden. Rank pay rises quickly as an officer gets promoted (a major gets Rs 1,200 per month, a brigadier Rs 2,400) and thousands of officers could clean up over Rs 3 lakh each.

Now four hundred retired officers have set up the Retired Defence Officers' Forum (RDOF) and filed several hundred petitions demanding that the ruling be applied across the board.

Lieutenant Colonel BK Sharma, president, RDOF has calculated that the government owes more than Rs 1,500 crore to the 70,000 affected officers.

Lt Col Satnam Singh of the RDOF says the government will also have to pay back dues for several entitlements that are linked to salaries: pensions, commutations, retirement gratuity, leave encashment benefits and family pension for soldiers who died after 1986.

With these sums at stake, the government has turned down appeals for all officers to be paid similar entitlements.

Replying to a Right To Information application filed by Lt Col BK Sharma, the Ministry of Defence indicated that it will fight other claimants in courts But even the military's legal officers admit that the recent Supreme Court rulings leave the ministry with little choice.

Another implication, that is sending shockwaves through the IAS community, is that the increase in military salaries at each rank would change the carefully crafted seniority balance in favour of the military.

For example, the inclusion of seniority pay would boost the emoluments of an army brigadier higher than that of a joint secretary (JS) in the IAS. A JS is presently ranked equivalent to a major general.