NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked the Centre to consider all paramilitary forces -- the CRPF, BSF, ITBP, CISF and SSB -- as organised services to remove stagnation and ensure promotion and other service-related benefits to their officers.
A Division Bench of Justice Kailash Gambhir and Justice Najmi Waziri said group A officers of paramilitary forces should be given all benefits, including non-functional financial upgradation (NFU) from 2006 in terms of the Sixth Pay Commission. The order would benefit about 10,000 Group A officers of central paramilitary forces.
The Bench was hearing pleas filed by over 200 serving and retired officers of the paramilitary forces seeking the court’s direction for grant of NFU to them, alleging that deprivation of the financial benefit was “affecting the morale and efficiency of the officers”. The NFU is a concept introduced in the Pay Commission and was granted to what the government termed as ‘Group A organised services’.
Under the NFU, if all the officers of a particular batch could not move up the ladder owing to lack of vacancies but only one does, the others would automatically get a financial upgrade like the one who has got promoted. However, it would involve only a financial upgrade not rank.
“The government itself has admitted in notifications, pamphlets and communications that they be considered organised services since 1986,” the Bench said. “As recently as in the February 11 list relied on by the Government, the petitioners in central forces have been categorised as ‘organised services’, therefore benefits ought to be granted to them,” the Bench said, adding officers of central forces be “deemed” to be treated as ‘organised service’.