The report of a government-appointed committee is expected to put an end to the contentious issue of parity between military officers and their civilian counterparts in the service headquarters.
The three-member committee was appointed to look into an order issued last October by the Defence Ministry “reiterating” the rank equation between civilian officers and serving military officers based on duties and functional responsibilities.
By the order, a Principal Director is equivalent to a Major-General, a Director is equivalent to a Brigadier and a Joint Director to a colonel. This led to severe displeasure in the services, which see the order as effectively lowering the status of their officers.
“The government has set up a three-member Committee of Officers to look into equivalence between service officers and Armed Forces Headquarters Civil Service (AFHQ CS) officers,” Union Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre told the Rajya Sabha last week.
Order questioned
Serving and retired military officers have questioned the order, citing past orders, court orders and other reports.
One of the communications sent to the panel said, “No equivalence can be established between commissioned officers (Group A equivalence service) and AFHD CS Officers (Group B Service) as no such precedence exists.”
Functional equivalence
The letter pointed out that certain benchmarks can be used to arrive at “functional equivalence”.
The letter suggested an “unambiguous” functional equivalence between Lieutenant-Colonels and Directors in the Central government based on various observations, gazette notifications, court judgments and recommendations of Groups of Ministers.
By this, a Lieutenant-Colonel or one of equivalent rank in the Army is equal to a Director, while a Colonel has no civilian equivalent. A Brigadier is equivalent to a Principal Director.
The communication from a retired officer noted that the junior commissioned officers in the armed forces have been accorded status of Group B-equivalent gazetted officers by Section 3 (xii) of Army Act 1950 and Para 151 of Defence Services Regulations 1987 (revised).
“In view of foregoing, it is submitted that anything contrary to benchmarked equivalence would not only be in violation of Warrant of Precedence ... but also amount to unacceptable downgrade of the established status of armed forces officers. It is likely to result in serious resentment and court cases in future,” the letter says.
