The veterans community has expressed concern and outrage on social media against the Army’s proposed “code of conduct” for them which was revealed by then Adjutant General last week.
Just before superannuating last week, Adjutant General Lt. Gen. Ashwani Kumar said in an interview to NewsX that the Army is in the process of finalising the code for the officers after their retirement.
Lt. Gen. Kumar said as armed forces who are entitled to keep their rank post retirement as per the Constitution, “it is anticipated that they will continue to follow the code of conduct more or less in the same way as was being done while in service” but there have been some cases that “we find that needs to be refreshed, fine tuned”.
This caused a barrage of reaction from the veteran community, including some sharp response from senior officers. Former Navy Chief Admiral Arun Prakash said in a post on twitter, “Let us first implement an Honour Code or Code of Conduct for our serving senior officers. Keeping “arm’s length” from political posturing should be one of the Key Result Areas (KRA).”
While all serving personnel are governed by the respective Service Acts, veterans aregoverned by civil laws. “Indian Constitution is our ‘code of conduct’. And Supreme Court is there to protect that,” Maj. Gen. SS Chohan (Retd) tweeted. Another veteran Brig. V. Mahalingam observed that “India is not China yet.”
The proposed code of conduct comes in the backdrop of criticism from veteran community against the Army on social media in recent times concerning various Service related decisions on opening of cantonment roads, One Rank One Pension, Non Functional Upgrade among others.
Even several serving officers too, who did not wish to be identified, expressed concern at the move calling it “draconian” and against the “principle of democracy.”
Lt Gen Kumar said it being a tri-service issue, it will be taken through the tri-service committees like Principal Personnel Officers Committee (PPOC), Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) and “when the three Chiefs decide it is in perfect shape to be taken forward with the Government, it will be done in that manner.” “Whatever existing provisions required to be amended, if we are required to go to the Government, that process will be initiated,” he added.
