Was Victimised By VK Singh, Banned Illegally, Says Army Chief Dalbir Singh

In the court document that refers to General VK Singh only as "then COAS (chief of army staff)", General Dalbir Singh has said that the former army chief tried to stall his promotion with "mysterious design, malafide intent and to arbitrarily punish" him for extraneous reasons.

"I was sought to be victimised by the then COAS with the sole purpose of denying me promotion to the appointment of Army Commander," the army chief has said in the document first reported by The Indian Express.

The allegations are not new, say army sources; Dalbir Singh had taken the same stand against VK Singh before the Armed Forces Tribunal in 2012. "General Dalbir then wasn't the army chief nor was General VK Singh a minister. Since the complainant filed the case in Supreme Court, Dalbir Singh has re-submitted the affidavit," said sources.

General Dalbir Singh met Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today. Sources said the government accepts his argument that he was obliged to file a response in his personal capacity.

Dalbir Singh was placed under a "Discipline and Vigilance" ban by General VK Singh, who is now the Minister of State for External Affairs, in 2012 for alleged "failure of command and control" over a botched search operation in Assam's Jorhat on 20 December, 2011.

In the controversial operation into which the army ordered a Court of Inquiry, the wife of a military contractor and his three children were blindfolded by masked men in army uniform, who allegedly ransacked their house and took away cash, jewellery and weapons. The army intelligence had reportedly suspected that the contractor was in touch with militants.

Dalbir Singh was then a senior commanding officer based in Assam. He has said in his document to the Supreme Court that on the day of the Jorhat operation, "I was away on part of annual leave and rejoined duty on 26 December 2011."

Asserting that there was not an "iota of evidence" against him, General Dalbir Singh said that a show cause notice issued to him by General Singh was "illegal and premeditated" and led to an illegal ban. The case, he said, "smacks of a motivated, biased, arbitrary and malicious intent to punish me, which the then COAS executed apparently as planned by him."

Dalbir Singh's promotion was finally cleared by General Bikram Singh who reversed the ban after taking over from VK Singh in 2012. The delayed promotion was challenged in the Supreme Court by Lieutenant General Ravi Dastane, who was among the contenders for the post and accused General Bikram Singh of favouring Dalbir Singh.

This is the second major controversy linked to General VK Singh's tenure as army chief. In the months before his retirement in 2012, he had moved the Supreme Court to change his birth date in army records, but the Supreme Court said that the government's decision on his date of birth would apply and rejected the contention of "prejudice" and "perversity" against him.