Business
Standard: New Delhi: Friday, 25 September 2015.
Commodore
(Retired.) Lokesh Batra has claimed that President Pranab Mukherjee's
Secretariat has given "incomplete, vague and misleading information"
to his RTI response of September 12, 2015, in which he had sought details of
the date when President Pranab Mukherjee and the President's Secretariat would
act on the letter written by several ex-service chiefs on the 'One Rank, One
Pension' scheme.
Maintaining
that the OROP issue and his RTI request needs to be treated under the
"Life and Liberty Clause of the RTI Act", Commodore (Retired) Batra
said that he had sent an e-mail letter to the President's Military Secretary,
Major General Anil Khosla on September 2, to respond, process and perused his
RTI on the letter written by four former service chiefs to the President. The
same e-mail had earlier been sent to N.K. Sudhansu, Director and CPIO.
He reiterated
his demand of being provided with list of file(s)/records with reference
numbers on which the said Letter/Petition/Memorandum of former chiefs of armed
forces was being processed.
Commodore
Batra said that the CPIO, President's Secretariat's Response to his RTI was as
follows:
(a) "The
petition in question has been received through e-mail. All concerned were
apprised about the petition on 17.08.2015. A copy of the petition is enclosed
herewith.
(b-c) The
petition was forwarded to the Prime Minister's Office vide I.D. No.
18/09/2015-P-1, dated 5.09.2015 (copy enclosed)"
Commodore
(Retired) Batra said that he sent a rejoinder to the President's Secretariat on
September 15 and again on September 17, wherein he categorically said that the
response of the latter was vague and not to the point, and demanded
"point-wise factual information".
He said that
the CPIO, President's Secretariat's response was as follows:
"The
information provided to you vide letter of even number dated 12.09.2015 is as
per records of the President's Secretariat. You have been provided the copy of
the petition, which has been forwarded to the Prime Minister's Office. However,
a copy of the e-mail, as requested by you, is being enclosed herewith."
Commodore
(Retired) Batra said that the CPIO, President's Secretariat, had not only
provided misleading information by not specifically mentioning the date when
the President had perused the said letter, but had also not provided him with a
certified photocopy of the said letter/petition/memorandum that had been
perused by the President and other senior officers of the President's
Secretariat.
He also
highlighted the fact that the CPIO, President's Secretariat, ironically had
provided him with a copy of the text of the petition and not the e-mail copy
received and perused by the President.
Commodore
(Retired) Batra said that he was extremely disappointed with the delay in
implementation of the OROP scheme, as also the delay from the President's
Office in responding to the open letter of the four former service chiefs
(General S.F. Rodrigues; Admiral L. Ramdas, Admiral Arun Prakash and Admiral
Suresh Mehta).
He said,
"It can be inferred from the CPIO, President's Secretariat's two
responses, that no action was taken on the petition/open letter of the four
former service chiefs to the President."
The four
former service chiefs had earlier written an open letter to President Mukherjee
requesting his intervention in the OROP issue, and said that its denial is
merely the last straw that has exhausted the veterans' patience.
"Firstly,
denial of OROP is merely the last straw that has exhausted the veterans'
patience. It appears to be the culmination of a process by which successive Pay
Commissions have been used to whittle down the financial and protocol status of
the military over the years vis-a-vis their civilian counterparts. Since no
rationale has ever been offered for this steady decline in status of the
military, the obvious conclusion is that it has been orchestrated to prove that
the key to 'civilian control' of the military lies in bringing it on par with
the police and paramilitary forces, and making it subservient to the
bureaucracy," said the open letter signed by former army chief General S F
Rodrigues, and former navy chiefs Admirals L Ramdas, Arun Prakash and Sureesh
Mehta.
"The
hostile approach of MoD bureaucracy was earlier demonstrated, in 2007-08, when
the 6th Pay Commission anomalies were required to be resolved. Their
insensitive and antagonistic handling of problems related to pensions and
allowances of aging veterans, war widows and battle-casualties led many to
approach the courts. This not only created a deep civil-military divide but
eventually forced a disciplined and politically-neutral segment of society into
the jaws of party-politics," the letter adds.
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