Left Over Issues Of The Rank Pay Matter : Why Old Anomalies Remain Un-Addressed

Some of the contents of this blog post would be repetitions of what has been stated earlier. However, this blogger felt it relevant to revisit the issue in context of a rather disconcerting experience, a few days ago, while interacting with another blog (now closed-down by the parent Association) that seeks to represent concerns of ex-servicemen.

The issue was the widely recognized anomaly of how the Officers who were promoted on time-bound basis, as opposed to by selection, to rank of Lt Col during the period covered by IV CPC and also by V CPC (till 16 Dec 2004), received the rank pay of Major in-spite of having been given the rank and pay-scale of Lt Col. At that time, this had been based on the strange logic that because the Officers holding, what was called, the time-scale rank of Lt Col were accounted against establishment posts / vacancies of Major so were eligible to be paid rank-pay of Major and not Lt Col.

Everybody and his uncle is now aware, or would be unless they had put on intellectual blinkers that some in the ESM community have a particular liking for, that rank pay is identified by the rank and pay-scale. Rank, Rank-Pay and pay-scale form one integral whole. There are legal judgments on the subject. There was no sound basis at all for giving the rank pay of Major to an Officer who had been given the pay-scale of a Lt Col and substantive rank of Lt Col, whether on select or time-scale basis.

By definition, rank pay has nothing to do with the establishment post or vacancy filled. It has everything to do with the rank and it's corresponding pay-scale. The Government had issued a letter on the subject and can be read by clicking on this link.

The comment that I interacted with on the other blog chose to shrug off the matter by mis-representing some facts. The issue relates to the entire duration of V CPC upto 16 Dec 2004 and not just to IV CPC as the person making the comment sought to project. The monthly loss in rank pay to each Officer holding the time-scale rank of Lt Col was Rs.400/- pm from 01 Jan 96 excluding the DA element.

While being critical of the length of my previous post on the matter and attempting to provide a rather erroneous view in a patchy "gist", one of the prime-movers of the association related with that other blog, in fact served to underline why some important veteran issues never get correctly dealt with or represented.

A link to the interaction on the other blog is at the end of this blog-post. The most important aspect of that little interaction is the resulting realization that if people, ostensibly in the forefront of fighting for veteran causes, choose to take the defeatist stance of, "Its too late to do anything now", or, "We can offer nothing but our sympathy", and, worst of all, "The Govt felt it should be that way", then perhaps the affected persons should make a note of the lack of grasp of issues on the part of entities that ought to show greater awareness of veteran matters.

In such cases, affected individuals need to take a leaf out of Maj Dhanapalan's book and independently get matters scrutinized thoroughly for correction through legal means.

Let us not forget, the rank-pay 'shortfall' also resulted in a a lower fixation of pensions for all of the similarly affected Officers who retired between 01 Jan 1996 and 15 December 2004.

Also, this matter was originally part of RDOA's contempt petition as a recent Twitter conversation reminded this blogger. It was listed at sub-para (h)of their rejoinder. As such, this shortfall ought to have attracted payment of interest as the rest of the rank pay arrears did. It is not clear whether RDOA are at all going to follow up on this aspect as judgment of Hon'ble Supreme Court had left it to individuals to obtain correct fixation in respect of the Rank Pay contempt petition.

It can only be hoped this following table would be clear enough regarding the matter to anyone who feels challenged by text:

Shortfall In Payment To An Officer Given Rank Of Lt Col But Rank Pay Of Major (V CPC)
Difference Of Lt Col and Maj RP with DA	Period	Total Difference
400	01 Jan 96 To 30 Jun 96	2400
416	01 Jul 96  To 31 Dec 96	2496
432	01 Jan 97 To 30 Jun 97	2592
452	01 Jul 97  To 31 Dec 97	2712
464	01 Jan 98 To 30 Jun 98	2784
488	01 Jul 98  To 31 Dec 98	2928
528	01 Jan 99 To 30 Jun 99	3168
548	01 Jul 99  To 31 Dec 99	3288
552	01 Jan 00 To 30 Jun 00	3312
564	01 Jul 00  To 31 Dec 00	3384
572	01 Jan 01 To 30 Jun 01	3432
580	01 Jul 01  To 31 Dec 01	3480
596	01 Jan 02 To 30 Jun 02	3576
608	01 Jul 02  To 31 Dec 02	3648
620	01 Jan 03 To 30 Jun 03	3720
636	01 Jul 03  To 31 Dec 03	3816
644	01 Jan 04 To 31 Mar 04	1932
666	01 Apr 04 To 30 Jun 04	1998	Based on DP element of RP and DA on same
684	01 Jul 04 to 15 Dec 04 (Edit: Officers who continued to serve beyond this date would have got rank pay of Lt Col as the Lt Col(TS) rank was abolished from this date. But, Officers given the rank of Col(TS) at QS of 26 years, continued to get Rank Pay of Lt Col till 31 Dec 2005)	3762	Based on DP element of RP and DA on same
Total Shortfall To An Officer Given Rank Of Lt Col But RP Of Maj. The lower Rank Pay could have also affected Pay in 6 CPC as well as Pension.		58428*	*subject to validation. **Intt ought to have been payable in       addition just as it was on the RP arrears.

{The interaction on the "other blog" can no longer be viewed as the Association had closed it down}.

Implications Of VII CPC Recommendations As Illustrated With Example Of Pensions Of Lt Col

{Update: The increment method originally recommended by 7 CPC was later changed by applying inter-CPC formulas for calculating "Notional Pay" of older retirees. Both methods did not co-relate the qualifying service of older retirees. The table in this blog post has been updated following amendments that were issued subsequently}

As mentioned in the previous blog-post, the grey areas regarding pension fixation for older retirees, as recommended by VII CPC, are best taken stock of in reference to actual examples.

Having touched on the vagueness surrounding pensions, as recommended for retirees in rank of Major, perhaps it is time to take a look at the other hapless category of armed forces retirees, the veteran Lt Cols.

It may be best to reproduce in enirety the recommendations of the pay commission regarding fixation of pensions as follows :

"10.2.87 The Commission recommends the following with regard to fixation of pension for past defence forces personnel retirees:

i. All the Defence Forces who retired prior to 01.01.2016 (expected date of implementation of the Seventh CPC recommendations) shall first be fixed in the Pay Matrix being recommended by this Commission, on the basis of the Pay Band and Grade Pay at which they retired, at the minimum of the corresponding level in the matrix. This amount shall be raised to arrive at the notional pay of the retiree by adding the number of increments he/she had earned in that level while in service, at the rate of three percent. Military Service Pay shall be added to the amount which is arrived at after notionally fitting him in the Seventh CPC matrix. Fifty percent of the total amount so arrived at shall be the revised pension.

ii. The second calculation to be carried out is as follows. The pension, as had been fixed at the time of implementation of the VI CPC recommendations, shall be multiplied by 2.57 to arrive at an alternate value for the revised pension.

iii. Pensioners shall be entitled to the higher of the two.

It is recognised that the fixation of the pension as per the above formulation (i) above may take a little time since the records of each pensioner will have to be checked to ascertain the number of increments earned in the retiring level. It is, therefore, recommended that in the first instance the pension, may be fixed in terms of formulation (ii) above, till final fixation of the pension under the Seventh CPC matrix is undertaken."

Let us ask some questions straight away:

• Why has VII CPC not addressed the issue of OROP in that brief paragraph?

• How has VII CPC spelt out the manner in which "equal service" for the same rank will be catered for in that matrix referred to in recommendations?

• Why are the two illustrations given in the CPC recommendations, following that para, only of those who retired in the VI CPC regime? What about retirees who retired in the V or IV or III CPC regimes? In those days, they did not have "pay-bands" or "grade pay" refereed to in VII CPC recommendations.

The answer to all these questions is, of course, that the blogger does not have the faintest idea.

Though the title of this blog post has a specific reference to retirees in the rank of Lt Col, some of the doubts raised are general in nature and serve to point to a lack of answers in the recommendations.

To start with, where the para of recommendations states, "All the Defence Forces who retired prior to 01.01.2016...", is it just possible it intends to mean "All personnel of defence forces who retired between 01 Jan 2006 and 31 Dec 2015 in the regime of VI CPC"?

That could make some sense because in the context of armed forces, the number of increments for the same years of service, pay-bands, grade pay are the same for respective ranks for both VI and VII CPCs as reflected in the matrix. The matrix is, more or less, consistent if one considers retirees who retired and will retire between 01 Jan 2006 and 31 Dec 2015.

Example:

Let us take the case of a Lt Col with, say 21 years of service, who retired on PMR on 30 Nov 2015. For the sake of simplicity, we can assume this Lt Col was promoted to the, now time-bound, rank of Lt Col on 01 July 2007 at a service of 13 years. That means he had 8 increments to his credit based on which, in the VII CPC matrix, his notional pay parity, in level 12A, would be 143500/- and his post VII CPC pension, inclusive of MSP would amount to 79500/-

Now consider the case of a Lt Col, also with 21 years of service who retired in the regime of V CPC on 31 October 2003 before, what some would term the infamous, date of implementation of phase-I recommendations of AVS Committee, viz 16 Dec 2004. Assuming, this second Lt Col had picked up his rank at a service of 18 years in July 2000, he would have "earned" three increments in the pay-scale applicable to his pay-scale rank at the time. This second Lt Col would then be placed in level 12 A of VII CPC matrix at the notional pay parity point of 123800/- which corresponds to a VII CPC pension (inclusive of MSP) amounting to 69650/-.

We see here the possibility of two pre 01 Jan 2016 veterans in the rank of Lt Col, with the same service of 21 years, being placed at two different pension levels post 01 Jan 2016 at pensions of 79500/- and 69650/-. Clearly, the recommendations and the matrix do not reveal the full story.

Increments Or 2.57X:

Another inference that can be drawn from the recommendations is that the pension arrived at as per para 10.2.87 sub-para (ii), i.e. by using a multiple of 2.57, yields a post 01 Jan 2016 pension of 26265 x 2.57 = 67501.05 for retirees in the rank of Lt Col. In the matrix, it corresponds to some point in between 1 and 2 increments which have pension values of 66100/- and 67850/- respectively in level 12 A. So, at first sight it appears any Lt Col veteran with more than one increment would need to have his pension fixed based on increments rather than the one arrived at with the multiple of 2.57.

OROP And The Matrix:

The scenario gets murkier if we bring in the element of OROP. Some behind the scenes tinkering seems to be presently underway for preparing tables of OROP pensions to be effective from 01 July 2014.

The powers that be alone know what they intend to unleash by way of what they would then term as OROP, but in specific reference to the VII CPC matrix, would the 2.57X multiplier be used on pension of 26265/- fixed by VI CPC for Lt Cols or used in conjunction with OROP pensions, presumably based on rank and years of service, expected to be thrown into the public domain shortly?

One of the aims of this blog-post is to underline the rather over-simplistic approach to illustrations in VII CPC recommendations referred to above. Some issues definitely arise when we shift to even a very simple example based on V CPC regime retirees as discussed in the preceding paragraphs.

It is also seen that the recommendations could raise lots of other questions in the context of OROP.

As an example, would the pensions of VI CPC retirees be first fixed as based on the 7 CPC matrix and pensions of V CPC and earlier regime Lt Col retirees then adjusted under OROP, based on equal service, with the pensions of VI CPC Lt Col retirees?

In the above example, the retiree under V CPC regime would then have his pension fixed at 79500/- and not 69650/-, as based on years of service and not increments earned for parity with a VI CPC retiree, the latter having his pension fixed on basis of increments as per the VII CPC matrix.

An Alternative:

This was suggested previously elsewhere. One other approach could be to review the term "increments earned" used in the above-mentioned para of VII CPC recommendations. 

The increments required to be considered would be those required to attain the actual years of service put in by a retiree when considered in the specific level of the matrix.

In the example of the Lt Col, considering that level 12A of the matrix starts at a service of 13 years, all previous Lt Col retirees with 21 years of service would need to have post 01 Jan 2016 pensions fixed at increment stage of 8 as 13+8=21.

The increment stage would need to apply to all past Lt Col retirees with 21 years of service for fixing their pensions and not the increments actually earned by them in the pay-scale of Lt Col. Those increments could have been as low as just 1 in the case of a Lt Col who had picked up the Lt Col rank at service of, say, 20 years in the regime of IV or V CPC and then taken PMR at 21 years of service.

A table could bring out the probable relationship between the increments earned component of the VII CPC Matrix vis-a-vis the number of years of service that these increments currently correspond to :

Pay Band	37400-67000
Grade Pay	8000
	Level 12A	Pension (Inclusive Of MSP 15500/-)	No. Of Years Of QS (Assuming Level 12-A starts at QS=13 years)
1	116700 121200	68350	13
2	120200 124800	70150	14
3	123800 128500	72000	15
4	127500 132400	73950	16
5	131300 136400	75950	17
6	135200 140500	78000	18
7	139300 144700	80100	19
8	143500 149000	82250	20
9	147800 153500	84500	21
10	152200 158100	86800	22
11	156800 162800	89150	23
12	161500 167700	91600	24
13	166300 172700	94100	25
14	171300 177900	96700	26
15	176400 183200	99350	27
16	181700 188700	102100	28
17	187200 194400	104950	29
18	192800 200200	107850	30
19	206200	110850	31
20	212400	113950	32

There will be additional complications when examples of retirees who retired in VI CPC regime but picked up their Lt Col ranks post AVS-I in V CPC regime.

The issue of Lt Cols who had retired with 26 years of service in V CPC regime prior to implementation of AVS-I will pose an additional twist to the complexity and needs to be dealt with separately.