Image by wallyg via Flickr"The main aspects have already been addressed in-principle and there has been a substantial addressing of the issue and I think 12 lakh personnel below officer rank have benefitted because of these decisions," Minister of State for Defence M M Pallam Raju said in New Delhi on Tuesday.
Ex-servicemen have been demanding equal pension for personnel retiring from the same rank irrespective of their date of retirement.
Persons retiring before the pay commission cut-off date get lesser pension than those retiring after that date.
Recently, while replying to a Parliamentary query, Raju had stated that government had accepted several recommendations of a Committee looking into the 'one rank one pension' demand to improve benefits of armed forces pensioners.
Among the recommendations were revision of Lt Generals' pension after carving out a separate pay scale for them and bringing parity between pension of pre- and post-October 10, 1997 for pensioners of personnel below officer rank. Fifth Pay Commission was implemented on that day.
He had said that around 12 lakh pensioners have benefitted by the government's decisions.
Armed Forces Tribunal disposes of half of its cases in 1 year
In the last one year, the Armed Forces Tribunal has disposed of around 50 percent of the cases transferred to it from the different High Courts of the country.
"Of the 2226 applications received by us till August, 1002 have been already disposed of by the Principal Bench," Tribunal Chairperson Justice A K Mathur said.
The former Supreme Court Justice added that "if the same trend continues, within next one year, the number of pending cases would be negligible."
The Tribunal was launched in August last year by the President and has the jurisdiction over the matters related to pension, Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs) and court martials in the three Services.
"There were many cases pending before respective High Courts for more than a decade which have been disposed of by the Tribunal within a period of one year," Armed Forces Tribunal's Principal Bench Bar Association General Secretary Rajiv Manglik said commenting on the speedy justice.
The Tribunal chairperson said eight of the nine planned benches of the tribunal have already been operationalised and the Mumbai bench is also expected to start its work soon.
The tribunal is the only one of its kind in the world which hears cases related to pension, court martial, promotion and others service related matters of the armed forces and has passed several important judgements in cases related to the Kargil war and the Sukna land scam.
Military tribunals are there in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada but they hear only court martial related matters.
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