Two types of pensions for Armed Forces. Claiming this to be violative of right to equality, and seeking for a common pension, a plea was filed.
Facts
The petition was filed by a Trust known as ‘Hamara Desh Hamare Jawan.’ The Trust represented by Adv Ajay Kumar Agarwal stated that the government was applying a pension scheme which was hybrid in nature. The scheme was a mixture of both the old and the new pension schemes. The scheme was applied to both Personal of Armed Forces which falls under the Ministry of Home Affairs and the people who joined the service after 1st January 2004. The problem with the new pension scheme is that it is not applicable to Armed Forces.
Arguments
The plea contended that the scheme is violative of equality. The Armed Forces under the Ministry of Home Affairs were being discriminated against. The petitioner contended that
“Border Security Force, Indo Tibetan Border Police, Assam Rifles, Shastra Seema Bail is protecting our International Borders and equipped with the same weaponry as is provided to forces under Defence Ministry. It’s services are no less than the forces under the Defence Ministry. These forces are protecting our borders round the clock and thousands of personnel had laid their live protecting our borders. Another force namely, CRPF is not only the world’s biggest armed force but is also considered to be the bravest armed force in the world having a strength of more than 3 lac personnel. On 14th February 2019 in Pulwama attack around 40 CRPF Personnel had laid their lives.”
The petition further stated that
“Each and every personnel of Armed Forces which comes under the Ministry of Home Affairs wants to get pension under the Old Pension Scheme but the Central Government has denied the pension under the Old Pension Scheme to the Personnel of Armed forces which comes under the Ministry of Home Affairs and therefore discriminating with the armed forces under the Ministry of Defence while both the forces are Armed Forces of the Union.”
Court Decision
The Supreme Court rejected to hear the plea. The two-judge bench composed of Justices L. Nageswara Rao & S. Ravindra Bhat has extended the petitioner permission to go to the High Court. The plea filed had sought the Court to direct the central government to remove the differences in the pension schemes and also to include the Armed Forces under the Ministry of Home Affairs under the old pension scheme.
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