New Delhi:
Questioning the manner in which Army chief General V K Singh's complaint about his age was rejected by the Defence Ministry on December 30 last year, the Supreme Court today asked the government to explain its stand on the row.
The court, which was hearing a petition by General Singh, observed that the decision-making process in rejecting the complaint was vitiated and gave the Defence Ministry the option of revisiting this order on the basis of an independent legal opinion before it takes up General Singh's petition for hearing.
The next hearing has been scheduled for February 10, giving the government and the Army chief more time to resolve the matter.
The court referred to the Attorney General's role in the matter. It wanted to know how an officer whose opinion formed the basis of the ministry's order fixing General Singh's age in July last year could also be involved in the process to decide on his statutory complaint on the issue. The court said that there was no independent evaluation of General Singh's complaint and pointed out that the same legal authority had given his opinion in both the instances.
The Army chief wants the court to decide on his age. He says he was born on May 10, 1951, but the government says it has to go by documents that list his date of birth as May 10, 1950. General Singh's records within the Army show both dates.
The General says he has tried several times to have the date corrected. But his requests were turned down. He insists he is concerned about "his honour and integrity" and not his tenure. He has become the first serving Army chief to take the government to court.
On Thursday evening, General VK Singh met Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, provoking murmurs that a compromise was in the offing between the General and the government. Sources told NDTV that while both sides were keen to find a solution to the impasse, no breakthrough was made.
Interestingly, General Singh did not drive up in his official Army vehicle.
A truce would save both the military and the government more public embarrassment. A solution, sources say, may emerge with the government accepting on record that the General has not misrepresented his age. In exchange, he may withdraw his case.
The problem lies in the fact that documents with the Army list both 1950 and 1951 as his date of birth. Earlier this week, the Ministry of Defence ordered the Army's record-keeper, the Adjutant General, to amend all records to uniformly show 1950 for the General's birth date. The Ministry of Defence says that several big promotions for General Singh, including his elevation to Army Chief, used 1950 in the calculations to establish his seniority.
The General says he has tried on different occasions to have his records corrected. He has said in his petition that his tenure can only be decided by the government. Though he does not explicitly refer to his term, if 1951 were accepted as his year of birth, he would be eligible for another year in office.