The government on Wednesday broke its silence on the move of Army Chief General V.K. Singh of dragging it to court on the age issue, terming it “unfortunate.”
Two days after Gen. Singh petitioned the Supreme Court, Minister of State for Defence M.M. Pallam Raju said: “it is an unfortunate development and not a healthy precedent either for the [Defence] Ministry or the armed forces.”
The Minister said this on the sidelines of a function organised by the National Cadet Corps in response to questions as to what the government was contemplating in the matter of sending the General on leave or appointing a new Chief.
Interestingly, while Mr. Raju chose to take questions on the issue, Defence Minister A.K. Antony avoided answering any queries in this regard from the media.
Soon after a brief function outside his South Block office, where a guard of honour was presented in honour of the visiting Deputy Prime Minister of Nepal, he did not respond.
The Ministry has ordered a clampdown on making any comment or even confirmation about reports, including purported meetings between the Minister and officials in the government, on the issue.
The public relations department of the Ministry has studiously avoided responding to any questions in this regard, with one senior official claiming that it is “out of the loop” on an issue that has generated widespread debate.
In a related development, the Army was represented by the Vice Chief of the Army Staff, Lt. Gen S.K. Singh, at the delegation-level meeting between India and Nepal. The Indian side was led by Mr. Antony and Deputy Prime Minister Bijay Gachhadar led the Nepalese side.
Keywords: Army Chief, Gen V.K. Singh, age controversy, Defence Ministry, age row, Pallam Raju
The present debate over the age row has highlighted the very major fault in the recruitment process of our army personnel :
1.the last declaration column in the UPSC form gives warning to the candidate regarding the correctness of the information supplied and the action which can be taken in case of any false statement which includes the cancellation of candidature and other penal action.
2. But UPSC does not blindly rely on any information given by the applicant but verify the same with the original document.
So, we find that in this case both are at fault
(i) CAS for providing false information in UPSC form
(ii) UPSC/Army for not verifying it with original at the time of his joining.
consider the case if Gen would have filled 1952 as his DOB.
question :
1.Board certificate or candidates declaration which one of the two must be taken for determinig the age???
1. DOB is always as given in matric certificate. also as given in the official birth certificate. IN the case of Gen V K Singh both are same. 2. The official records of Army Officers are kept by A G branch. .This also is the same as given in the birth certificate and matric certificate.3. The M S branch has wrongly kept a wrong dob.4. the mischief has been created deliberately by the babus. The Govt it appears wants a certain chosen person to be the next chief. Indira gandhi side stepped Gen Bhagat to make her chosen Raina the chief. She again side stepped Gen Sinha . the same game is being played now.
“it is an unfortunate development and not a healthy precedent either
for the [Defence] Ministry or the armed forces.” We can sympathise with Hon Minster if he can confess to lay public the inability of the Government to control bureaucracy and make them answerable to public it is suppose to serve. It is common knowledge that the Indian civil servants, both state and central, treat the public like dirt and consider them a nuisance. Situation has reached such an alarming and uncontrollable level that even the mighty Army General is not spared their manace.
Why does the govt. feel, General's move is unfortunate?As rightly said
by Rohan, it is not just in Pakistan, that, military man participates
in political activity......remember George Washington, Andrew Jackson,
Theodre Roosevelt, Charles DeGaule, or Eisenhower.This country's
intelligensia is suffering from "Indo-Pak syndrome".
Learn to look beyond Pakistan. Even Pakistan has changed recently.This
is a good move by Gen. V K Singh to slowly remove the arbitary / Un-
accountable power that has so far (since 1947) been given to the
political class, which has resulted in them forming a dynastic feudal
mafia. Chiefs of various other organisations in the country have challenged the Union Govt, on past several occasions.The CVC case is the latest example.Army man is also bonafide citizen of India,and they also have
equal right to disagree with the govt. on issues. Govt. increased RBI governor's term by 2 years,where as they want to scuttle Gen. term on pretax of DOB.there is a plan.
A small matter that could be solved in an hour behind closed doors has been blown into a national emergency.Does the M.O.D finds an honest,brave general and gutsy man not to their taste?He wants to clean up the Army of corruption.How dares he to do that? Some people in the ministry are making millions by leting India buy junk weapon systems from Russia and France.India is leasing a nuclear submarine that was heavily damaged.They have done some patch work.What about the aircraft carrier?It was ready for junkyard when Russia decided to give it to India free.After a lot of patch work they are asking a price as if were a brand new ship.They have yet to deliver it.Indian Army has no new guns and helicopters.The modernization of the Army has been forgotten.The bickering among the generals have been encouraged by the politicians.A great soldier has been insulted.
It is the army chief who has created the controversy by giving two DOBs. If the person were to be civil servant he would be prosecuted for giving false info. AS george orwell said in his animal farm in democracy ALL ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ARE MORE THAN EQUAL. Different yard sticks to measure the same!!!
Army Chief General V.K. Singh, is eligible and should be allowed to serve the country another year. It is not his fault that UPSC erred on his birth date.The way government handled this issue is very bad. Moving to Supreme court to get his stand clear is not a sin as a fine citizen of this country he has the right for it, but the Government stand not to take remedial steps in time is a shame especially after getting AG advice and knowing all the facts about the issues.His case should have been handled with great care and respect to his office.May be the public would be in dark about the whole issue, hope Supreme court will shed some light on the matter.
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