Rank Pay issue: Law Ministry advisory to Defence Ministry

The constant to and fro of the files pertaining to the Rank Pay case involving veterans has certainly irked the community. However it now seems that the country's top law officer is being made to face the red-tapism, something he is not taking very lightly to.

It has been reliably learnt that while dealing with the Statements of Case (SOC) on this issue from the Ministry of Defence (MoD), in a meeting with the Law Ministry, it as conveyed to the Legal Adviser (Defence) that the ministry should not keep bothering the AG with queries of same/similar nature. Not just that, with this blow, the MoD had no option but to retreat on this and take the SOCs back. Reliable sources say the MoD has to now re-work its SOCs.

Not only will it further delay the case but also add another layer of bureaucratic procedure before the AG's office can be approached. This, it is learnt, was conveyed to LA (Defence) in a meeting on October 28, 2013 which he conveyed to Joint Secretary (Establishment) MoD on October 31. With that move, the SOCs of service headquarters as well as MoD were returned by the AG's office and Law Ministry towards 'framing questions of law pertaining to the case.'


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