Gen Singh also blames army for age row

Jan 31, 2012 |

IANS

New Delhi

Tags:

The Indian Army chief, General V.K. Singh, on Tuesday agreed with Defence Minister A.K. Antony that the administrative branch of the force was to blame for his age row.

"He (Antony) is right. There is no doubt about that. Obviously it is not the MOD (ministry of defence), it is within the army. There is something wrong," Gen Singh told reporters after Antony in similar remarks blamed the army for the dispute over the chief's age.

The age row stems from two sets of records with the Adjutant General's and Military Secretary's branches of the Indian Army.

Singh, citing one set of birth records, says he was born in 1951 and was not due to retire until March 2013.

But records at the defence ministry show he was born in 1950, which means that Singh, who became army chief in March 2010, is due to step down in May this year.

The general said the issue "should have been sorted out earlier" and assured that corrective measures have been put in place so that the "problem shall never recur again" and there is a better coordination between various branches of the army.

Gen Singh also agreed with Antony that there was no rift between the government and the army over the issue.

"There is no confrontation. We are playing it up unnecessarily," he said.

The army chief is set to reply to a letter last week from the defence ministry asking the Adjutant General's branch for an amendment in records of Singh's year of birth.

Asked about the delay in replying, the chief said: "Normally a letter comes, it is studied. It takes time. Everything happens as per its own time."

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/123174" 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-8143bfbded82c52cb9a612a306f15027" value="form-8143bfbded82c52cb9a612a306f15027" /> <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="80741828" /> <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>