Applicability of Judgments to similarly placed employees.

Government of India

Ministry of Defence

D(CMU)

Sena Bhawan, New Delhi,

Dated 07 September, 2018.

Subject: Implementation of recommendations of Expert Committee constituted by Hon’ble Raksha Mantri

Reducing Litigation has been the prime focus of the Government of India and is being repeatedly emphasized by various circulars from Cabinet Secretariat and Ministry of Law & Justice. in this regard, various circulars have been issued by D(CMU) which cover the following aspects significantly:

I. Procedure for handling Court Cases in Ministry of Defence.

II. Procedure for filing of Appeal/SLP in Supreme Court.

III. Measures to withdraw repeated Appeals/SLPs where the issue has already been decided by the Apex court.

2. In this regard, a Committee of Experts was also constituted by the Hon’ble Raksha Mantri vide MoD O.M. No.61/D(CMU)/2015 dated 15.07.2015 to look into solutions for reducing litigation concerning the Ministry of Defence and to put in place an efficient mechanism of redressal of grievances related to service and pension matter. The said Committee has made several recommendations to strengthen the grievance redressal mechanism and to reduce litigation. These were examined by the Ministry. With the approval of the Hon’ble RM, 16 recommendations were accepted for implementation, 16 recommendations were accepted in-principle and 43 recommendations were to be further examined for taking an appropriate decision. Based on the recommendations of the Committee, the following guidelines are hereby reiterated for the guidance of all concerned:

Recommendations No. 22, 24 & 61 : Avoiding unnecessary appeals

In these recommendations, the committee has recommended that litigation be viewed in an impersonal, non-adversarial and dispassionate manner and should not be made a prestige-issue or a win/loss situation. The committee has also recommended that- the tendency of continuous unethical filing of appeals in issues that have attained finality at the High Court or Supreme Court should be checked and all such pending appeals should be identified and immediately withdrawn. Further, it has also been emphasized by the committee that unnecessary appeals should be avoided. and as a matter of principle, the attempt of the Government should be to accept court verdicts as far as possible. Appeals should be an exception and not the rule. And in exceptional cases only challenges should be made to the High Courts against verdicts of CAT rendered in favour of employees, and not as a matter of routine. 

All concerned are requested to take note of the above mentioned guidelines. In this regard, D(CMU) has also issued ID note No. 7(9)/2018/D(CMU) dated 26.06.2018 (copy enclosed) and Office Order No. 1/(1)/2015-D(CMU) dated 02/02/2016 (copy enclosed).

Recommendation No. 50: Applicability of Judgements to similarly placed employees

Expert committee has recommended that whenever a legal principle is settled by a High Court or the Supreme Court, the same must be universally applied to all similarly placed employees or at least on individual representations after examining the same, rather than forcing them into individual litigation. 

In this regard, attention is drawn to D(CMU)’s ID No. 7(9)/2018/D(Cl\/lU) dated 26.06.2018. However, it is proposed that each case may be decided on its merit, subject to consultation with Department of Expenditure and DOP&T having regard to financial implications.

4. All concerned are again requested to take cognizance of the above recommendations and take necessary action as required, in order to reduce litigation.

Sd/-

(SK Sharma)

Director(MIS)

All Joint Secretaries in MoD

All-Additional FAs in MoD(Finance)

CCR&D HQ

MoD ID No. 4(5)/D (CMU)/ 2018 dated 07.09.2018

Minutes of the Meeting held under the Chairmanship of Additional Secretary (JN) to Identify Court Cases to be Withdrawn

A meeting was convened by AS(JN) on 22.06.2018 with all the Joint Secretaries of Department of Defence, JS(ESW) and LA(Def) to deliberate upon the above said issue.

Representatives of the JAG(Army) and JAG(Navy) were also present in the meeting. 

2. Initiating the discussion, AS(JN) gave the background of the meeting and informed that recently Supreme Court had imposed a penalty of 1 Lakh on Ministry of Defence for repeatedly filing SLPs over the issue which are already decided by the Apex court.

There is an urgent need to take appropriate measures to withdraw such cases so as to avoid further embarrassment and penalty/strictures in similar instances.

3. Each participant was thereafter requested to provide details of the existing no. of cases in Supreme Court, High Court, AFTs, CAT and District & Subordinate Courts and the number of cases identified for withdrawal. In response, the following information was provided by the participants regarding their respective Wings/Divisions:

Name of Wings/Division	Details in r/o Court Cases pending/withdrawn/proposed to be withdrawn.
JS(ESW)	A total of 163, 46 & 8 pension cases relating to Army, Air & Navy respectively are pending before the Supreme Court. Out of 163 pension cases of Army, 20 are proposed to be withdrawn. Out of 46 pension cases of Air, 14 have been withdrawn and 22 are proposed to be withdrawn. Out of 8 pension cases of Army, 1 is proposed to be withdrawn.
JAG (Army)	Approximately 6000 cases are pending in all the courts inclusive of 1000 cases (approx.) in Supreme Court.
Rep. from Navy	There are 388 cases (mostly pension cases) pending in AFT, out of which 79 are proposed to be withdrawn.
CAO	1 case is pending in Supreme Court which has been filed by UPSC with MoD as a proforma respondent. 36 cases are pending before High Courts and 51 cases before CAT. In addition, 6 cases are pending before AFT/lower courts. A vast majority of the cases relate to service matters of civilian employees.
BRO	Total 1246 cases are pending, out of which 28 are in supreme Court.
PDCP (Principle Directorate of Civilian personnel) of Navy	Total 788 cases are pending, out of which 5 in Supreme Court, 123 in High Court, 26 in District & Subordinate Courts and rest are in CAT
JS(Works)	DGDE has 387 cases pending in Supreme court and 37 in CAT. E-in-C has a total of 1310 cases pending, out of which 54 in Supreme Court, 224 in High Court, 844 in CAT & 112 in AFT.

4. AS(JN) observed that no clear or satisfactory position is emerging from the data provided in the meeting. After detailed deliberation, following action points were agreed upon:-

a) An exercise to be carried out urgently to compile data regarding the total number of existing court cases pending in various courts i.e., Supreme Court, High Court, AFTs, CAT and District & Subordinate Courts, along with appropriate categorisation of cases.

b) Wherever an issue has already been decided against the Department by the Supreme Court, all matters where similar appeals are pending before Supreme Court, High Court, AFTs, CAT and District & Subordinate Courts, shall be identified for withdrawal.

c) In all cases identified for withdrawal in accordance with b) above, appropriate action should be taken for withdrawal of cases expeditiously.

d) As regards the suggestion of LA(Def) to amend the existing policies to bring them in line with the decisions of the Supreme Court wherever the two are in conflict, the issue can be considered once the exercise of quantifying, categorizing and identifying cases for withdrawal as mentioned above has been completed. Similarly, his suggestion to automatically give'consequent relief to all similarly placed persons once a case has been finally decided against the Department and not confine grant of relief only to persons who were litigants in that particular case will also be considered after the above exercise has been completed.

e) AS(JN) requested all participants to complete the action on the points as decided in the meeting and come with all details in the next meeting. 

AIDTOA congratulates all the Defence Civilian employees & officers through out India for boycotting Lunch on 13.11.2018. Save Defence Industry.

Review the policy decisions taken by the MoD / Army Hqrs which created alarming situations in the Defence establishments.

(1) The former Defence Minister Sri Manohar Parikkar set a target of Rs.20,000 Crores to be achieved by the Ordnance Factories during the financial year 2019-2020. Accordingly OFB  was travelling in that direction. During the year 2017-18 OFB achieved a target production worth Rs.17,250 Crores. However without any reason all of a sudden the target was reduced to Rs.6,500  Crores and subsequently to Rs.11,600 Crores. Even today the Army Hq has not released indent  for many items. Due to this there is a sudden wage reduction imposed on the employees of Ordnance Factories by reducing the piece work earnings and overtime. 

(2) In the name of "Non-Core" many strategic Defence equipment such as small arms, ammunition box, Vehicles (Trucks), Troop Comfort Items like strategic Army Logo Trouser and Jacket,Extreme Climate Clothing, Blankets, Tents, Parachutes, Boots. Jersey etc., were withdrawn from Ordnance Factories and the Army is reluctant to place indent for these items to the Ordnance  Factories and hence the future of 5 OEF Group of Factories, VFJ and the Small Arms group of Factories is in dark. This has created a situation not only disturbing the existing employees, but the future of the trained Trade Apprentices who are trained under the Skill Development mission is also in dark, since their employment opportunities in the Ordnace Factories have also become bleak.

 (3)The MoD has previously assured in writing that no Ordnance Factories would be closed, No worker would be displaced, efforts will be taken to provide the existing workload to the factories  &  training and redeployment would be done in the same factories. However till date no road map  has been  made to provide sufficient work load to these factories and also for identifying alternative  work load, training and redeployment in the same factory.

 (4) Orders have been issued by the Army Hqrs to disband all the station workshops under EME  thereby displacing the civilian employees resulting in disturbance in their family and social life.

(5) Steps are also taken to close down the 4 Depots under DGOS.

(6) Steps are also taken to handover the Army Base Workshops under DGEME to the private sector  in the name of GOCO Model.

(7) Recruitment action taken for filling up of more than 30,000 posts in various Army units has been kept in abeyance and 26,000 NACs are pending with AG's Branch. The AG's Branch is not issuing NACs  to the Army units to fill up the vacancies  on the plea  that 31,000 Defence Civilian employees declared surplus due to the above mentioned steps should be adjusted first, The more  than 30,000 unemployed youth selected for appointment is being denied the employment opportunity and they will become over aged thereby denying the employment opportunity for them including the youth from socially and economically downtrodden OBC, SC & ST communities.

AIDTOA extends support to the demands of Struggle Committee of Defence civilian employees to save Defence Industry.

DEMANDS

1) To withdraw policy decisions taken by the Government against Defence Industry.

i) Withdraw  the  decision taken  to declare  the products  of  Ordnance  Factories as Non-core, provide sufficient workload to all the Ordnance Factories, and change the costing system of Ordnance Factories by removing the salary element and other overheads from the cost of these products, enabling Armed Forces to continue to procure items from Ordnance Factories resulting in employment opportunities to the Trained Trade Apprentices.

ii) No closure of EME Station Workshops and Depots under DGOS.

iii) No GOCO Model of Army Base Workshops.

iv) No outsourcing in MES, DRDO, DGQA and Navy and fill up all vacancies in all the Defence Establishments.

2) To scrap the NPS, alternatively exempt Defence Civilian employees from NPS at par with Armed Forces and restore Defined Pension under CCS (Pension) Rules,1972 to those   recruited on and after 01.01.2004.

AIDTOA appeals to all Defence civilian employees & Officers throughout India to boycott lunch on 13.11.2018.

CAT- Ernakulam :: Sheeba B. vs UoI -- on Pensionary benefits to PAs recruited in 2005 against the vacancies of 2002