The Hindu : New Delhi News : Court orders promotion of Major-General

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Court orders promotion of Major-General

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: Passing directions for promoting a Major-General posted at present at Army Ordnance Corps headquarters of South-Western Command in Jaipur, the Delhi High Court has imposed a cost of Rs.10,000 on the Union Government for blocking his promotion on one invalid ground or another for the past two years.

Major-General A. K. Kapoor was considered for promotion to the rank of Lieutenant-General by a Special Selection Board in May 2007 but the result was withheld.

After ten months, Major-General Kapoor moved the High Court seeking announcement of the result.

When the Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Moolchand Garg examined the records relating to the promotion of the officer, it found that the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) had not approved his promotion as his case had been directed to be treated as one of deemed ban because of lodging of a criminal case against the officer for allegedly amassing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

However, on examination of the policy for imposition of a deemed ban, the Court found that the relevant clause of the policy had been applied to the case of the officer arbitrarily.

Disposing of the petition, the Bench said: “We are thus of the considered view that there was no impediment whatsoever for the promotion of the petitioner and the ACC ought to have promoted the petitioner once there was no other material on record except the corruption”.

“If the petitioner had been promoted, nothing precluded the respondents at the appropriate stage to take action against him. The Army authorities have deemed fit that during all this period of time when the petitioner had not been promoted, he continues to occupy the most important post, that is, Major-General Army Ordnance Corps (MGAOC), HQ, South Western Command, Jaipur, and the petitioner is dealing with purchases. Thus the petitioner had been found fit to perform important duties dealing with financial ramifications and yet promotion has been denied to him,” the Bench observed.

The Court directed the Government to do the needful within 15 days of the pronouncement of the order as the petitioner is running against time. He will retire in November.

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