Gen. plea: PM had cleared promotion
Army Chief Gen. V.K. Singh, while blaming the office of military secretary for “raking up” his date of birth issue after it was virtually settled by the Army, seems to have put the ball in the court of PMO as well, stating in his petition to the Supreme Court that his promotions from brigadier onwards were cleared by the Appointment Committee of Cabinet, headed by the PM on the basis of May 10, 1951 as his DoB.
“As per the charter of the duties, the promotion of the petitioner within the preview of military secretary (MS) branch and as per the rules, the promotions of the brigadier to major general to lieutenant general are approved by the ACC and the chairperson of the committee is the PM who will approve the recommendation of the MS branch for promotion on the basis of the ACRs wherein DoB of petitioner (Singh) is mentioned as May 10, 1951,” the petition said. As full details of his 67-page petition and bulky annexures came out on Wednesday, it was evident from the records that as many as four former Chief Justices of India — J.S. Verma, V.N. Khare, G.B. Patnaik and R.C. Lahoti — had clearly opined to the office of the adjutant general (AG) that May 10, 1951 should be treated as his DoB as recorded in his matriculation certificate issued by the Rajasthan Board.
The Army headquarters in response to an RTI application as late as on February 23, 2011 had said “the DoB of General Singh, as per the records of the AG branch and as per the high school certificate was 10th May 1951” not as May 10, 1950, accepted as “correct” by the ministry of defence now in its order of December 30, 2011.
Not only this, the AG branch subsequently on February 25, 2011 had requested the MS branch to carry necessary “amendments” in its records to reflect Gen. Singh’s DoB as May 10, 1951, the petition claimed.
But instead of amending the records, MS branch referred the case to the MoD stating that as per the policy on changing the DoB of commissioned officers the decision has to be taken only by the ministry despite AG branch in a subsequent letter of March 21, 2011 clarifying to MS branch that the case of Singh did not pertain to “changing” of DoB but “amending” the records.
The whole correspondence between MS branch and AG branch on the issue started with the February 11, 2009 letter of the former seeking clarification about General Singh’s actual date of birth.
The petition further pointed out that when RTI application of Kamal Taori was pending before the Army HQ even the law ministry in its legal advice of February 14, 2011 had stated that “as per the records pertaining to DoB such as ID card issued by IMA, the Class 10 school certificate of Rajasthan Board, all confidential records and course reports, all medical examination reports and as per documents maintained by MP-5 and record of service sent by IMA, General V.K. Singh’s DoB IS 10, May 1951.”
“It is also important to mention that AG branch also sought the opinion of Justice J.S. Verma, former CJI, who also concluded that the petitioner’s (Singh’s) DoB is 10-5-1951 and all records needs to be harmonised accordingly.”
Post new comment