Beyond The Uniform: Why SSC Officers Deserve Pension And Post-Service Opportunities
The structure of Short Service Commission system was designed to infuse young and dynamic talent in Indian Armed forces. The Short Service Commission is certainly a very significant scheme to individuals who would not wish the defence services to form their permanent profession and also to meet the military shortage of officers in the three services. Over a long time before the year 2006, SSC was eligible to stay a period of 5 years after which it could be extended to a period of another 5 years, which could be further extended to a period of 4 years. An individual who was discharged after 5 years was accorded gratuity and also ex-serviceman having release of cessation of terms of engagement. But in a year 2006 supposedly to make SSC more desirable, the 5+5+4 years system previously followed was modified to 10+4 years system thus revising it to 10-year mandatory system to get benefits including ex-serviceman status.
A 10-year period on the organizational side may be crucial in order to keep officers on its books long enough to get pension but on the individual side the same period becomes exploitative as no one is a person in a way than when he is neither here nor there at a crucial stage of life thus putting him or her 10 years behind others in the civic life. Even military status or rank is not safeguarded in case when an SSC officer chooses a government post.
It is a myth that SSCO's are granted attractive terminal benefits. As a matter of fact, there is not even one terminal benefit which an SSCO gets in lieu of being removed from the service after 10-14 years. Each officer's DSOP (Defence Services Officers Provident) fund is 100% composes of the contributions made in the fund by officer alone. There is not a single rupee contributed into this Fund by the government. The interest earned by the officers in DSOP fund is as per the government interest rates, which is paid by the government in all types of provident funds. The point to be noted is that there is absolutely zero contribution of the government in the principal amount of the DSOP Fund. According to the Office Manual Part -V For CDA(Funds) issued by Controller General of Defence Accounts evident in Chapter 1 Section 1 that SSCO'S are eligible for Contributory Provident Funds (CPF) and they should not be mandated to contribute in DSOP Funds.
One of the myths is also that SSCO's are granted Pro-Rata Pension when they join government jobs or PSU's (Public Sector Undertakings). But as a fact, no pensionary benefits of any kind are being granted to SSCO's as a matter of policy. If a SSCO joins a government service or PSU after 10-14 years in the Army, Navy or Air Force, they are not granted pro rata pension but as per recent judgments of Hon'ble High Court of Delhi, Airmen and persons other than officers are granted pro rata pension if they join government service or PSU's after completing 09 years of service in Airforce.
As far as the Army Group Insurance Fund (AGIF) is concerned, an amount of INR 1,60,000 is deducted from the amount payable to the officer, upon his release, without the same being authorized by the officer. The amount disbursed to the officer after his release is therefore his own money, retained by the government in the respective GIF (Group Insurance Fund) since the first month of his military training.
Although India has such a large social-security framework, the facts of retirement benefits are much more disheartening. There are more than 81.48 lakh pensioners who are governed by the Employees' Pension Scheme (EPS-95) as of 31 March 2025. However, a greater number (49.15 lakh plus) of them (more than half) earn less than 1,500 a month, which simply cannot be associated with any concept of dignified living. Ninety-six percent of the population earns less than 4,000 and almost 99 percent less than 6,000 monthly. The number of EPS pensioners earning above 6000 per month is only 0.65 percent of the total number (53,541 people). This extreme imbalance remains regardless of the fact that the EPFO (Employee's Provident Fund Organisation) operates a corpus of investment of approximately 9.92 lakh crore (unaudited) and pays 23,027.93 crore under EPS-95 in 2023 24. Conversely, the Union Government alone is sustaining 67.95 lakh pensioners in central services as of March 2023, which proves that pension security is not a new concept and is not economically unsustainable.
These statistics speak to a structural fact: that millions of Indians are already living on paltry contributory pensions, so the omission of SSC officers of any kind of post-service financial security is even more constitutionally problematic. Deprivation of a mere safety net to the officers who have devoted the best decade of their lives to the service of the nation, cannot be repaired, when the State can afford to take care of nearly seven million pensioners.
The constitutional frailty of the pension scheme of Short Service Commissioned Officers (SSCOs) is brought to the fore in Lt Col Rajveer Singh Chauhan v. One of the most effective petitions in the history of the Armed Forces Tribunal was Union of India. Lt Col Rajveer was a much adorned and highly decorated officer of the Army Aviation Corps whose challenge was on structural exclusion of SSCOs by pensionary and pro rata service retirement benefits in spite of their over fourteen years of exemplary service.
The petition advanced the view that the policy of denying pension to SSCOs is arbitrary and is unconstitutional under Articles 14 and 21. It filed that automatically placed civilian workers find social-security insurance under schemes like the National Pension System (NPS), Central Provident Fund (CPF) or other contributory plans following similar periods of service. The petition argued that there is no reasonable nexus between the withdrawal of the right to pensions and any military efficiency or financial viability purpose. As an acknowledged aspect of the right to livelihood and dignity in Article 21, pension cannot be arbitrarily denied to a group of defence officers who serve in the most crucial areas of the sovereign in conditions that are risky and vigorous.
The constitutional unfairness was further revealed by the sad demise of Lt Col Rajveer in service his children who had dependents were left with no kind of financial cover, something that was unthinkable in civilian set ups where even a temporary or a contractual employee has family pension on special grounds upon retirement. It has since emerged as a reference point in the wider discussion of SSCO pension rights, in which the case is viewed not as an administrative peculiarity but an injustice in the Constitution based on the lack of equal protection.
After reading the official numbers and the case of Lt. Col Rajveer Singh Chauhan, there is an obvious inequality between the amount of retirement benefits offered to civilian government officers and those offered to Short Service Commissioned Officers (SSCOs) of the Armed Forces. Pension benefits Pension benefits automatically accrue to civilian officers who have at least ten years of regular service under either a statutory or contributory pension scheme like the National Pension System or the old-fashioned Central Provident Fund scheme. This right gives that not a single civilian employee, at ten years, fourteen years, or twenty years of service retires without some sort of a pensionary security.
Conversely, in sharp contrast, SSCOs working in permanent commission, usually a period of ten to fourteen years, do not receive any form of pension, despite most of them undertaking operational duties under dangerous conditions. It implies that an SSCO, having served full, can get a single gratuity and no regular pension or survivor benefit. The application of this unequal treatment of two categories of civil servants carrying out the functions of the State has no rational argument and no purpose and therefore provokes severe considerations of equal protection in accordance with Article 14 of the Constitution.
The essence of the demand of Short Service Commissioned Officers to be equally regarded in respect of pensions is a demand to the constitutional protection of Article 14, that there be no arbitrary discrimination between the similarly-situated public servants. It is not simply an administrative oversight on the part of the company that they are not entitled to pension rights; it is a structural weakness of the service architecture itself that cannot accommodate constitutional principle. The premeditated and ongoing denial of pensionary protection to SSCOs in a constitutional order that states substantive equality and which upholds vulnerable service groups is an obvious deviation of the mandate of fair and non-discriminatory treatment. The State has a positive duty to reconsider and rewrite policies that reinforce systemic imbalances and withhold social-security benefits on individuals who have given the best decade of their work life to military service under the doctrine of transformative constitutionalism.
On release, the SSCOs end up in the situation of not being covered by a pension scheme and having no viable route back to the government service, which has the direct consequences of involving Articles 14 and 21. A State which undertakes dignity, security of livelihood and the promotion of equal protection cannot afford to deny to the recipient of service in defence of the very Constitution itself, the fundamental social-security benefits. Allowing pension rights to such a small group would make only a small fiscal burden and lower the number of litigations which could be avoided as well as boost institutional morale.
“When the service ends, the duty of the state begins – and 'pension is its first expression'”
Views Are Personal.
References:
- Controller General of Defence Accounts (CGDA). Office Manual – Part V for CDA (Funds), Chapter 1, Section 1: Provisions relating to Defence Service Officers Provident Fund (DSOP) and Contributory Provident Fund (CPF).
- Ministry of Defence, Government of India. Policies and Rules on Short Service Commission (SSC) Engagement and Release Terms, updated notifications and circulars (2006 onward).
- Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). Annual Report 2023–24 and Pension Statistics under EPS-95, accessed through official EPFO publications.
- Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions. Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules and data on Central Government pensioners (2023).
- AFT/Delhi High Court Case Records: Lt Col Rajveer Singh Chauhan v. Union of India, Petition challenging pension exclusion of SSCOs (case documents and cause lists accessible on AFT Delhi).
- Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Reports on defence pensions and expenditure for relevant years.
- National Pension System (NPS). Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) – operational framework and eligibility provisions.