NEW DELHI: With military veterans continuing their protest against what they say is “a diluted, lame-duck” one rank , one pension (OROP) scheme notified by the government, defence minister Manohar Parrikar on Monday said everyone in a democracy had the right to make demands but not all of them could be fulfilled.

Holding the government had approved the “maximum” it could to meet the demands of ex-servicemen, Parrikar said the judicial commission to be set up would look into the “problems” and anomalies arising out of the OROP implementation.

“This is a democracy. Everyone has the right to demand. But the maximum... their main demand for same pension for same rank has been given. Rest is everything that we had declared (on September 5). Out of that, the confusion about VRS (voluntary retirement) has been removed,” said Parrikar.

IAF chief Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha, who is also the chairman of the chiefs of staff committee, in turn, said all veterans should now accept the OROP notified by the government. If anomalies still persist, they can be sorted out in due course of time, he added.

But it cut no ice with the veterans, who have been protesting for the last 148 days. “We have only one demand, and that is OROP. No junior should get more pension than his senior. We will begin returning our medals across the country from November 10-11,” said Group Captain V K Gandhi (retd), general secretary of the Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement.

The government on Saturday had formally notified OROP for the over 24 lakh ex-servicemen and six lakh widows around the country, which will entail an additional outgo of around Rs 8,000 to 10,000 crore every year, as was reported by TOI.

The notification was almost identical to what Parrikar had announced on September 5, except for the clarification that military personnel who had earlier opted for premature retirement would get OROP but fresh cases would be kept out of its ambit.

Holding that the government had not resolved any of the seven main anomalies pointed out by them, the veterans are particularly angry that the government did not accept their case for “pension equalization or adjustment” every year. With the government sticking to its stand that it will be done only at five-year intervals, the veterans say it will mean “one rank, five pensions” and not OROP as it was originally envisaged.