Defence Ministry to look into civilian-military parity

Services remain unconvinced by the government’s recent clarification on equivalence

Manohar Parrikar

With concerns still remaining among the defence services on the issue of civil-military parity, the Defence Ministry is now taking a hard look at it.

The government had on Thursday clarified that “there has been no downgradation or any change in the existing equivalence of the service ranks whatsoever” and the clarification issued was only for “matters of assigning duties and functional responsibilities” and applies only to Armed Forces Head Quarters cadre in the service headquarters.

Clarified earlier

However the services remind unconvinced and they conveyed their concerns to Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. “Ministry is looking into the issue. Since the issue is very old and complicated it will take some time to resolve it,” defence sources said on Friday.

Sources said that the aim will be to resolve the issue at the earliest given its sensitivity. This issue of equivalence, which had been clarified in 1991 and further reiterated in 1992, 2000, 2004 and 2005, has only been re-affirmed in last week’s order, officials said. Speaking on the issue, Maj. Navdeep Singh (retd.), an advocate at the Punjab and Haryana High Court said, “It seems that certain elements have tried to take advantage of the lack of institutional memory and change-over of the political executive.”

However he expressed confidence that Mr. Parrikar would be able to sort out this matter.