In Brief
Ex-servicemen challenged the government's implementation of One Rank One Pension (OROP)—a scheme to pay uniform pensions to defence personnel of the same rank and service length—arguing the revised definition violates equality rights. The government changed from promising automatic pension revision to fixing revisions every five years, and used 2013 average pension rates as the base for prior retirees instead of current rates. The Court held that while the government accepted OROP in principle before 7 November 2015, precise modalities were finalized only then; the policy is constitutionally valid as it uniformly applies to all retirees regardless of retirement date, uses rational base-year selection, and involves legitimate policy choices balancing defence modernization and pension costs. The Court directed re-fixation of pensions from 1 July 2019 onwards and disposed of the petition.
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