Unhappy with govt committee, may approach court: Ex-servicemen on OROP issue

New Delhi: Ex-servicemen agitating on the ‘One Rank One Pension’ (OROP) issue rejected on Monday the single-member committee announced by the government and said they may approach the court against its setting up. [caption id=“attachment_2545108” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. PTI[/caption] “We do not accept this committee in the first place. We may have to exercise the option of going to court,” Col. Anil Kaul (retd), spokesperson of the Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement, told IANS. “All OROP anomalies can be resolved by the government itself; a committee is not needed. You form committees only when you want to push a matter further,” he said. He said a meeting of IESM governing body may be called in a couple of days to discuss the issue. The veterans have maintained that the OROP scheme announced by the government is flawed. The one-member judicial committee, announced by government along with the scheme on 5 September, is one of the sore points with the ex-servicemen. “If at all a committee had to be made, a one-member committee makes no sense. There should have been a multi-member committee… this panel will only look into the issues projected by the government,” Kaul said. The veterans demand that at least three members from the ex-servicemen fraternity be taken on any panel to be formed on the issue and it should be given not more than a month to make recommendations. “We are not questioning the integrity of the judge in question; but what would a justice know about the armed forces,” Kaul wondered. The government on Monday appointed a one-member committee of L Narasimha Reddy, a retired chief justice of Patna High Court, to look into OROP’s implementation. The committee will submit its report in six months. IANS