Army Plan To Ensure Younger Officers Lead Combat Is Cleared

New Delhi: A plan by the army that it says will place younger officers in charge of combat has been cleared today the Supreme Court.  

The army's "command and exit policy", introduced in 2009, was rejected last year by the army's internal court or the Armed Forces Tribunal - a decision trumped today by the Supreme Court.

In 1999, the "sluggish response" of the army during the Kargil War with Pakistan was highlighted by a government committee which concluded that colonels and brigadiers need to be younger to efficiently lead the army during wars.

The Ajay Vikram Singh committee - named for the bureaucrat who headed it - pointed out that the average age of a colonel leading an Indian combat unit was 41, while it was 37 for the armies of Pakistan and China.

"The committee came up with a series of short and longer term proposals aimed at pulling more officers up the chain of command, while peeling off those who had no avenue of advancement," said analyst Srinath Raghavan in a column for ndtv.com.

The so-called command and exit policy affects promotions for the ranks of Colonel, Brigadier, Major General and General, and decrees that when they turn 40, they be moved to a non-combat section with the same rank - "lateral absorption" - or be compensated through measures like a voluntary retirement scheme.

The government has confirmed to the court that it will create nearly 140 additional posts for non-combat corps as compensation for senior officers within those arms.  

The main petitioner in the case,  Lt-Col PK Choudhary, argued that many senior officers would have to forgo promotions and be over-taken by junior officers. He also claimed that the policy was skewed to favour the artillery and infantry arms by giving them more vacancies for promotions.  Nearly 200 officers joined him in challenging the policy, claiming that it would create fissures within the army.