Can promotion in the Armed Forces actually leave an officer financially worse off?
By Wg Cdr Ajit Kakkar (Retd), Advocate, Military & Service Law Practitioner
Strange as the question may sound, this has become an important issue before the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT). A peculiar pay anomaly has resulted in situations where officers promoted to the rank of Major General, Air Vice Marshal or equivalent rank may draw lower reckonable pay, and consequently lower pension, than officers holding the immediately junior rank of Brigadier, Air Commodore or equivalent.
The issue has already generated substantial litigation before the Armed Forces Tribunal and has implications for a large number of serving and retired senior officers.
How Did the Major General–Brigadier Pay Anomaly Arise?
One important reason is Military Service Pay (MSP).
MSP is admissible to commissioned officers only up to the rank of Brigadier and equivalent. When an officer is promoted beyond that level to Major General, Air Vice Marshal or Rear Admiral, the separate component of MSP ceases.
This can produce an unusual situation. According to figures reported by BharatShakti, under the Seventh Central Pay Commission structure, the reckonable pay of a Brigadier after inclusion of MSP could reach ₹2,33,100, whereas the maximum prescribed pay referred to for a Major General without MSP was ₹2,18,200. The consequence is difficult to justify on ordinary principles of service jurisprudence: an officer may receive a promotion carrying substantially greater rank and responsibility but nevertheless find himself drawing less than an officer of the immediately junior rank.
The problem becomes more serious after retirement because pay fixation affects pension and consequential retirement benefits.
The Basic Legal Question: Can Promotion Cause Financial Loss?
The issue is larger than MSP. The fundamental question is whether a senior officer can legitimately be placed in a financially disadvantageous position merely because he has been promoted. The Armed Forces Tribunal has dealt with this issue in a series of cases concerning senior officers of the Armed Forces. One of the important decisions is AVM P. Subhash Babu v. Union of India. The principle applied in that matter subsequently became relevant in other cases concerning Air Vice Marshals facing similar senior-junior pay anomalies.
The reasoning is important: promotion should ordinarily not result in the senior officer receiving lower pay than the junior officer merely because of the structure of pay fixation.
AVM Amarjeet Ahuja Case
I had the opportunity to argue the case of AVM Amarjeet Ahuja (Retd.) v. Union of India, OA No. 1914/2020, before the Armed Forces Tribunal, Principal Bench.
The case raised substantially the same issue of anomalous pay fixation. The Tribunal considered the earlier decision in AVM P. Subhash Babu and allowed AVM Ahuja’s application. The significance of the judgment goes beyond the individual officer because the Tribunal recognised the applicability of the earlier principle to another similarly situated senior Air Force officer.
This is important in service law. Once the underlying legal issue has been examined and decided, repeatedly compelling similarly placed officers to litigate individually raises a larger question of uniform implementation.
AVM Dinesh Kumar Awasthi Case
The same issue subsequently arose in AVM Dinesh Kumar Awasthi, VSM v. Union of India & Others, OA No. 2694/2023. I also represented AVM Dinesh Kumar Awasthi before the Principal Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal. He had been promoted to the rank of Air Vice Marshal on 28 May 2018. His grievance was straightforward: despite being an Air Vice Marshal, his pay was lower than officers junior to him. The relief sought included stepping up his pay from the date of promotion, consequential arrears and refixation of pension.
The importance of cases such as AVM Ahuja and AVM Dinesh Kumar Awasthi is that they demonstrate that this is not merely an Army-specific Brigadier-versus-Major-General dispute. Equivalent anomalies can arise in the Air Force and Navy as well.
Major General Cases and the Wider Principle
Similar questions have arisen in Army cases, including matters concerning Major Generals such as Maj Gen Sanjiv Jain, which I have also had occasion to argue. The recurring grievance is substantially the same: a higher-ranking officer should not suffer a financial disadvantage compared with a junior merely because the junior rank carries an element of pay which disappears upon promotion. Thus, although individual facts and dates of promotion may vary, the broader question remains common across the Services:
Should promotion to a higher military rank ever result in lower pay or pension than the immediately junior rank?
AFT’s March 2023 Intervention
The issue subsequently acquired wider significance. As reported by BharatShakti, on 14 March 2023, the AFT Principal Bench allowed a batch of petitions involving Major General-rank officers and equivalent ranks in the Navy and Air Force. The Tribunal directed stepping up of pay and pension with reference to the relevant juniors, along with consequential benefits.
The dispute, however, did not end with the judgment. Implementation itself became another round of litigation.
Litigation Should Not Become Necessary for Every Identically Placed Veteran
This is perhaps the most important policy question emerging from these cases. If a court or tribunal settles a recurring pay anomaly based upon a principle applicable to an identifiable class of officers, should hundreds of retired officers have to file separate cases seeking substantially the same relief? The answer has consequences beyond these particular officers.
Repeated litigation increases the burden upon the AFT, requires veterans to spend time and money pursuing claims after retirement, and ultimately requires the Government itself to defend numerous proceedings involving substantially similar questions of law.
Where the factual and legal circumstances are genuinely identical, administrative examination of the issue on a class-wide basis can therefore avoid unnecessary litigation.
Of course, every judgment must be read in the context of its facts, and mere similarity of rank does not automatically establish entitlement. Dates of promotion, pay fixation, junior-senior comparison, applicable pay rules and previous benefits received would still require verification.
But once these requirements are satisfied, differential treatment between similarly situated officers can itself become a further source of litigation.
The Implementation Problem
The BharatShakti report highlights precisely this emerging problem. The Government challenged the AFT decision in a connected case involving AVM Laxmi Narayan Sharma before the Delhi High Court. The High Court admitted the matter but, according to the report, did not stay the AFT order. Execution proceedings nevertheless followed before the Tribunal.
The report further states that around 82 affected officers eventually initiated contempt proceedings relating to non-implementation. In August 2026, the Ministry of Defence reportedly issued orders stepping up the pay and pension of litigating officers. The differential amount is to be treated as personal pay and counted for relevant purposes, subject to undertakings connected with the pending judicial proceedings.
That development has created the next legal question:
What about officers who are identically situated but did not approach the Tribunal?
This question may now become more important than the original pay anomaly itself. More Than 200 Senior Officers May Seek Relief
BharatShakti reported on 17 September 2026 that more than 200 Major Generals and Lieutenant Generals had approached legal counsel regarding similar relief. If that figure translates into litigation, the matter could develop into another substantial group of service-law cases before the Armed Forces Tribunal. But such litigation also raises a broader administrative issue.
If the Government has accepted implementation for one group of officers because of judicial orders, while another group is governed by materially identical facts and rules, requiring every remaining officer to obtain an individual judicial order may lead to avoidable multiplicity of proceedings.
What Should an Affected Officer Examine?
Before approaching the AFT, an affected Major General, Air Vice Marshal, Rear Admiral or other equivalent officer should first examine the actual pay records rather than proceeding merely on the basis of rank. The relevant questions include the officer’s date of promotion; pay immediately before and after promotion; pay of the identified junior; treatment of MSP; applicable Sixth or Seventh CPC provisions; retirement date; pension fixation; PPO; and whether any personal pay or stepping-up benefit has already been granted.
The comparison must be legally comparable. A pay difference arising from unrelated circumstances may not necessarily create a right to stepping up.
The Larger Principle for Armed Forces Pay and Pension
These cases demonstrate an important feature of military service law.
Higher rank should not become a financial penalty.
An officer promoted from Brigadier to Major General, from Air Commodore to Air Vice Marshal, or from Commodore to Rear Admiral assumes greater responsibility and occupies a higher position in the military hierarchy.
A pay structure producing the opposite financial consequence deserves careful legal and administrative scrutiny. The litigation beginning with cases such as AVM P. Subhash Babu, followed by cases including AVM Amarjeet Ahuja and other similarly situated senior officers, has brought this anomaly squarely before the Armed Forces Tribunal.
The next phase is likely to concern not merely whether the anomaly exists, but whether relief already judicially recognised for similarly situated officers should require every veteran to institute a separate case.
That question has significance well beyond the individual pension of any one Major General or Air Vice Marshal. It concerns consistency in government decision-making, equality in service conditions and the larger objective of reducing avoidable litigation involving Armed Forces veterans.
About the Author
Ajit Kakkar & Associates, New Delhi, appears before the Supreme Court of India, Delhi High Court and other high courts, the Central Administrative Tribunal and Armed Forces Tribunal (Principal Bench) in matters related to Service law for Army, Navy, Air Force, BSF, CRPF, CISF, ITBP, Coast Guard, Assam Rifles, GREF, Delhi Police, Civilian Govt Employees and other Govt employees.
