Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Jan 3: The High Court has stayed the new Government policy on Village Defence Group (VDG) and directed the authorities to continue with the previous policy.
Justice Sanjeev Kumar granted four weeks’ time to the authorities to file a counter affidavit with a copy in advance to counsel for the petitioners. Court directed that the new policy should not be given effect till further orders.
Court directed that the petitioners shall be allowed to continue to be governed by the scheme promulgated in 1995 and they be paid the honorarium as was being paid prior to the issuance of new scheme of 2022.
Court passed these directions on the petitions filed by those who had been appointed as SPOs in VDG in 1995 and they challenged the new policy issued last year under which their nomenclature was changed and their monthly honorarium was reduced from Rs18,000 to Rs. 4500.
The plea of petitioners is that the members of the VDG were to be engaged on voluntarily basis and the selection was to be made by the district administration from amongst the ex-servicemen and ex-policemen available in the village.
Each VDG was to be headed by a retired officer of the Army and Police. The Head of the group so selected was to be appointed and given the powers of Special Police Officer. The petitioners before are all the Heads of the VDG, who have been appointed and given the powers of special police officers and have been receiving the honorarium payable to the SPOs in the police.
The Government, with a view to give some monetary incentive to the other members of the Group, directed the Heads of the VDGs, who were functioning as SPOs, to share their honorarium with the other members which led to a spate of litigation by these SPOs and the litigations were in favour of the latter. The decision of the Court in the aforesaid batch of petitions led to a re-think by the Government.
With a view to meet the demand of the other members of the VDGs for remuneration and also to bring down the honorarium payable to SPOs, the authorities came up with a new Scheme known by the name of ‘Village Defence Groups Scheme, 2022’ (VDGS-2022) promulgated vide Government Order No. 287-Home of 2022 dated 14.08.2022.
The scheme was issued in supersession of earlier Scheme issued by Government in 1995 but was made operational prospectively with effect from 15.08.2022. By virtue of this scheme, the nomenclature of SPO, which was given to the head the VDG under earlier scheme has been done away with and new nomenclature i.e., ‘V1 category’ and ‘V2 category’ has been created.
The SPOs, like the petitioners, who are heading the Village Defence Groups, are put in V1 category and are given an honorarium of Rs. 4,500 per month whereas V2 category i.e., other members of the VDG working on voluntarily basis have also been allowed uniform rate of Rs.4,000 per month.
Advocate Kotwal argued that not only the scheme promulgated vide impugned Government order is prospective in operation and would apply to the new recruitment to V1 Group and V2 Group but it is also per se arbitrary, in that, it reduces the honorarium of the petitioners who are appointed as SPOs from Rs 18000 to 4500 per month without giving any reasons.
He also argued that the promulgation of new scheme has been only with an aim to deprive the petitioners of the rights which would have accrued to them as SPOs as also to teach them a lesson for taking the respondents to the Court in the matter of distribution of their honorarium with the other members of VDG.
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