Army recommended promotion of graft-accused officer: Antony

Mar 29, 2012 |

IANS

New Delhi

Tags:

Defence Minister A.K. Antony on Thursday said General V.K. Singh-led Army Headquarters had recently recommended promotion of the lieutenant general against whom the army chief has lodged a graft complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

"Only recently this lieutenant general's name has been proposed for promotion as Army commander… that proposal (from the Army Headquarters) was made on March 22. The proposal has reached my office only today," Antony told reporters.

Antony's remarks came a day after the Army chief sent to the CBI a May 2011 letter from Trinamool Congress MP Ambika Banerjee complaining against Lt. Gen. Dalbir Singh Suhag, who commands the Dimapur-based 3 Corps.

If promoted as Army commander, Suhag will be in line - after chief designate Lt. Gen. Bikram Singh - to head the 1.13 million strong Indian Army.

But Gen. Singh, citing the letter from the MP, has asked the premier investigating agency to probe the complaint against the lieutenant general alleging widespread procurement scams in the secretive Special Frontier Force - when Sugah was its inspector general.

Banerjee has alleged payoffs for the purchase of night-vision devices, communication systems and weapons, as well as parachutes.

Antony said he was aware of the MP's letter but what he didn't know was that the Army chief had forwarded it to the CBI. He said he had asked Gen. Singh to initiate action if the complaint was specific.

"I have regular meetings with service chiefs. The Army chief told me about some complaint against this particular lieutenant general. I told him if there is a specific complaint you must take action. This ended there.

"I don't know about this latest letter to the CBI by the Army chief," the Defence minister said.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/138259" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-41fa51414b1bc55dee5b6e2685b78066" value="form-41fa51414b1bc55dee5b6e2685b78066" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="84710385" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>