Dismissal of a soldier for taking unauthorised leave of over 300 days is not a harsh move, the Supreme Court held in a recent judgment.
Setting aside a 2015 decision of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) that the punishment was “harsh and disproportionate”, a Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Hemant Gupta found that the usual punishment for absence without leave, which amounts to desertion, is imprisonment.
‘An error’
“We are clearly of the view that the Armed Forces Tribunal was in error in coming to the conclusion that the punishment which was imposed was harsh. The only basis for the finding was that the respondent (soldier) had put in 12 years of service. This was all the more a reason why any responsible member of the Armed Forces should not have absented from service without permission,” Justice Chandrachud said, writing the judgment for the Bench.
The respondent, Sepoy Kulbeer Singh, was enrolled in the Army Service Corps (ASC) in April 1996. He was deployed to Jammu and Kashmir but failed to report to his new unit in November 2007 and was declared a “deserter”.
In September 2008, after 302 days, he reported to the ASC Centre at Gaya.
