All Personnel Of Paramilitary Forces Entitled To HRA Irrespective Of Rank; Existing Policy Discriminatory: Delhi High Court

Questioning the Ministry of Home Affairs's decision to confine House Rent Allowance (HRA) benefit only to Personnel Below Officer Rank (PBORs), the Delhi High Court has said that every personnel in the paramilitary forces shall be entitled to the benefit irrespective of the rank, as per their entitlement.

A division bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Saurabh Banerjee has directed the Centre and other authorities to take necessary steps within six weeks, in consultation with Ministry of Home Affairs as well as Ministry of Finance, to grant HRA benefit to such personnel.

"We are unable to find any reason as to why officers belonging to the rank of Officers / Coy Commanders or PBROs, should not be granted similar benefit more so as the factum of their serving at far off locations has been recognized and it cannot be differentiated on cadre basis. We fail to understand why such policy decisions discriminating within the force should be permitted to continue, especially to the officers of the force who spend their lives serving the nation," the court said.

The bench was hearing pleas moved by nine individuals, group officers in Grade-A in the Border Security Force (BSF), holding posts in the rank of Assistant Commandant, Deputy Commandant and Second-in-Command.

It was their case that despite construction of the family accommodations, they along with other similarly situated officers were neither provided with the Government accommodation nor were they being paid HRA for keeping their families at different locations.

As per the official memorandum issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs on July 31, 2017, the competent authority under the Seventh Pay Commission recommended that the personnel of the uniformed services can keep their families at any location and would be paid HRA. However, the said recommendations were confined to the PBORs and denied to the Group-A officers.

A representation was preferred by the petitioners against the OM which was forwarded to MHA for consideration. However, the same was rejected vide a Signal dated March 15, 2018. Both the OM and Singal were challenged by the petitioners to the extent that the benefit was confined to PBORs, thereby seeking inclusion of similarly situated personnel for HRA.

The bench appreciated the recommendations of Seventh Pay Commission acknowledging services of uniformed services regarding HRA and agreed with the view that such officers are required to stay in the fields, far off from the necessary amenities while leaving their families behind.

However, the court said it fails to understand as to why the Commission "only thought of giving parity to the PBORs of CAPF at par with PBORs of Defence Forces" while leaving behind the proposal of extending the same benefit to Coy Commanders (officers of the level of Assistant Commandants/ Deputy Commandants).

"We, while holding the Chair as the Judges of this Court as well as normal civilians, respect their will power to stay away from their families," the court said, adding that "a strange anomaly" was being sought to be corrected in the matter.

The court noted that the respondents, neither in the counter affidavit nor during the arguments, made submission that the proposal of extending the same benefit to Coy Commanders/ Officers of Group A was under consideration.

"To the contrary, the stand of respondents is that the impugned Signal has been passed in compliance of the recommendations W.P.(C) 11083/2019 & W.P.(C) of the Seventh Pay Commission," the court noted.

Observing that the respondent authorities cannot be permitted to take a discriminatory view for personnel of different forces deployed in common areas for grant of HRA, the court set aside the impugned Signal and letter rejecting petitioners' request for HRA.

The court also partly set aside MHA's OM, directing the authorities to extend the benefit to all the personnel of the Forces irrespective of their rank, as per their entitlement.

Title: PRAVEEN YADAV AND ORS. v. UNION OF INDIA AND ORS.

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Del) 1185

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