INDIAN EXPRESS
Army Chief General VK Singh has been calling it a fight for his ‘honour and integrity’, but nowhere in his petition in the Supreme Court does the General delink the age and tenure. In fact, Singh has also asked for all the “consequential reliefs” that come if his age is accepted as 60, one year less than what the Defence Ministry has been maintaining.
DECCAN CHRONICLE
An Army Chief ‘has a right to retire with dignity’, Gen V. K. Singh has pleaded before the Supreme Court while accepting the government's right to determine his tenure.
Challenging as ‘illegal and arbitrary’ the rejection of his Statutory Complaint to Defence Minister A. K. Antony on December 30 last for accepting May 10, 1951 as his date of birth, Gen Singh has said that this was also violation of his fundamental rights.
Seeking the quashing of this order, the Army Chief has pleaded in a 68-page petition that the government be directed to treat May 10, 1951 as his date of birth and ‘grant all consequential reliefs thereto’.
Gen Singh's unprecedented action in dragging the government to the apex court followed the ministry's insistence that May 10, 1950 would be treated his official date of birth and that he would consequently retire on May 31 this year.
In his petition, he has stated that he wished to make it ‘abundantly clear at this stage’ that regardless of the result of the petition or the controversy surrounding his age, the government ‘has the right to determine the tenure of his office of the Chief of the Army Staff.’
Gen Singh stated that the government's action and conduct in refusing to accept his contention on his birth date was affecting his image before the general public and the armed forces.
It was his right to have a "dignified life", he pleaded in the petition, adding that an army chief has "a right to retire with dignity".
Referring to the ministry's orders of December 30 and earlier rejecting his case, the Army Chief has said that these orders have "conveniently ignored" his matriculation certificate, entire service record including entry into service, promotions and annual confidential reports.
He has stated that being a highly decorated officer, he had received all his awards, decorations and promotions as per the date of birth being 10.5.1951.
Gen Singh has enclosed voluminous documents and records with the petition in support of his stand that his year of birth was 1951.
However, he has said that in an application dated 29.7.1965 for admission to National Defence Academy (NDA) course he had, as a 14-year school boy, inadvertently filled his date of birth as 10.5.1950.
Gen Singh said Military Secretary's Branch (MS Branch), one of the departments of the army, somehow now claims that his date of birth is May 10, 1950 while the same department while processing his name for the gallantry awards reflected the year of birth as 1951. He said the Adjutant General's Branch (AG Branch) being the official record keepers of the Indian Army maintains the year of birth as 1951.
The Army Chief said he had only sought harmonisation of the records of the two departments and his request was erroneously construed as request for change of birth and was wrongly turned down by the two orders. He said he has had impeccable service record and has been decorated for his exemplary and meritorious service. In a service where discipline and respect for seniors is one of the important feature, the controversy has been given undue publicity and coverage in the media.
Citing a judgement of the apex court in Kochunni verus State of Madras in 1959, Gen Singh said the court has categorically said that an application under Article 32 of the Constitution cannot be refused merely on the ground that such an application has been made to the Supreme Court in the first instance without resort to High Court or there is some adequate alternative remedy available to him.
It was further held in that judgement that the right to move the Supreme Court for the purpose of enforcing the fundamental rights itself is a fundamental right.
DNA INDIA
To avoid an embarrassment in the age row issue involving General VK Singh, the UPA government on Thursday sent fresh feelers to the army chief to make him withdraw the case. The move, a day before Gen Singh's petition will come for hearing in the Supreme Court, comes immediately after Union law minister Salman Khurshid and National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon met the army chief on Tuesday to convince him to end the rift.
Defence ministry sources told DNA that defence secretary Sashikant Sharma met Gen Singh with a fresh offer on Thursday.
He told the army chief that the government will accept May 10, 1951, as his date of birth if he agreed to step down on May 31 this year. The government has insisted that Gen Singh’s year of birth is 1950. Therefore, the offer to accept 1951 as his birth year is strange as by that logic, his retirement date will push to May 31, 2012. Sources in the army headquarters said Gen Singh is unlikely to accept such a “strange” offer.
Minister of state for defence Pallam Raju also met Gen Singh later in the day to resolve the crisis. Sources in South Block told DNA that prime minister Manmohan Singh has asked Khurshid to stay in Delhi at least tillJanuary 21.
The law minister who was hoping to take part in the UP poll campaign is overseeing the government's legal position and response in the case.
The government's decision to appoint Eastern Army Commander Lt Gen Bikram Singh as the next army chief if Gen VK Singh retires this year has also intrigued many. The army chief's writ petition in the Supreme Court, however, has added a twist to the issue. In his appeal, Gen Singh said if the court rules in his favour, all service rules related to his birth year of 1951 must also apply. This means he will serve till May 31, 2012, and serve an additional year that comes with this date of birth.
Sources close to the army chief also dismissed the government's contention that he had not informed it about his petition. They said defence minister AK Antony was kept informed about the move. Defence ministry officials have rejected the contention.
The opinions submitted by Attorney General Goolam Vahanvati earlier have widened the rift between the government and Gen Singh. Vahanvati said the chief justice had not raised any issue for the "correction" of his birth dates for over 30 years of his service till 2006. Gen Singh rejected the contention and said there was no "problem" about his birth year since the army headquarters never raised the issue till 2006.
Gen Singh also pointed out that all that he had sought was a "reconciliation" of the two birth dates by two branches of the army headquarters. The adjutant general's branch had always maintained 1951 as his year of birth as the official and sole personnel record keeper of the Indian Army. The military secretary's (MS) branch, which takes care of only postings of officers and annual confidential reports, has no authority to comment on the date of birth of an officer. And yet, sources close to Gen Singh insist, the MS branch's sudden discovery of an UPSC application in 2006 led things to such a pass.
Defence ministry sources told DNA that a joint secretary, Bimal Julka, who had examined the matter, sought an official inquiry as he was not convinced with the MS branch's claim of 1950 as Gen Singh's birth year. The inquiry never happened and the defence ministry rejected Gen Singh's claim citing this inquiry.
Julka was subsequently posted in the ministry of finance. Some claim that Gen Singh's steadfast position to nail all officers connected to the Sukhna land scam could also have played a role in this strange affair. A court of inquiry had fixed the blame on Lt Gen Avadesh Prakash who would later on head the MS branch in 2008. By the time, the matter came to such a head that the year of 1950 surfaced and soon became a major point of controversy, unprecedented in Independent India.
HINDUSTAN TIMES
Before Army chief General Vijay Kumar Singh’s doughty daughter landed up at the Supreme Courtregistry to file a writ petition on behalf of her father on Monday evening, the officer wrote to DefenceMinister A K Antony that he was taking legal recourse in the age issue.
General Singh informed Antony that he had been forced to go to the court to prevent a possible adverse legal fallout of another petition filed before by the Rohtak chapter of the so-called Grenadiers Association and with which he had no truck in any way. It is another matter that a court insider leaked the news of General Singh going to court to TV news channels much before his letter reached Antony on Monday.
General Singh was advised by his lawyers that his legal options on the date of birth issue would be closed if the Supreme Court took up the Grenadiers Association’s petition as it was rather insidious and factually inaccurate in many places. For instance, the association’s petition stated that Lt. General Bikramjeet Singh, presently Eastern Army Commander and in line for the Army Chief’s job, was related to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Given such inaccuracies, the Supreme Court in all probability would have taken a rather poor view of the submission and would have foreclosed all options for General Singh. Now that General Singh has sought legal remedy to determine whether he was born in 1950 or 1951, it would be interesting to shed light on the behind the scenes and unsuccessful dialogue between him and the government over what the he terms as an honour and integrity issue. General Singh in his petition has sought interim relief from the court over the rejection of his statutory complaint on the age issue by the Defence Minister on December 30, 2011. After General Singh filed his statutory complaint before Antony on August 25, 2011, he met UPA wise man and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and told him what he had done.
Mukherjee looked at General Singh and said that he took this statutory complaint as an opportunity and not a challenge for the government. General Singh told Mukherjee that the complaint was only aimed at rectifying his age and not programmed to increase his tenure as Army Chief — a matter which is the prerogative of the government. For the next four months, a key government interlocutor and a close friend of Singh played the messenger in the hope that an amicable compromise could be reached. The interlocutor failed. Not because his or General Singh’s intentions were not honourable but because theUPA has now acquired the habit of speaking in multiple voices.
The final straw for the Chief was a series of slanderous media articles this month which led him to believe that they were being orchestrated by the Defence Ministry. Before General Singh went on an official visit to Myanmar on January 5 he met National Security Advisor Shiv Shanker Menon. Sharp as he is, Menon suggested that the government would come out with a statement making it amply clear that age was not the issue and that it wanted General Singh for other services preferably in the civilian set-up. As the idea was fair, General Singh agreed to it with a single caveat. He said as long as the government agreed that his date of birth was 1951 he was even willing to resign and pave way for whomsoever the UPA wanted to appoint as Army Chief. General Singh returned from Myanmar on January 9 and met Mukherjee, who assured him that he was on the job and solution soon would be found to the age issue.
In the meantime, senior UPA ministers including Antony, P Chidambaram and Salman Khurshid prepared for stage two by calling General Singh a very competent soldier. A solution was in sight and the interlocutor was toiling hard, but then came the series of slanted media articles, which the Army suspects the Defence Ministry of inspiring and that hit at General Singh’s personal integrity. A day before the Army Day on January 15, Antony gave a dressing down to all his officers and made it clear that not a word should be leaked by his ministry. But the damage had been done.
General Singh was awarded the Yudh Seva Medal in 1989-90, the Ati Vasisht Seva Medal in 2006 and the Param Vishisht Seva Medal in 2009 by the President of India with his date of birth May 10, 1951 mentioned on them, but still the inspired media articles took pot shots at him. After hosting At-Home for the President, the Prime Minister and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, General Singh decided to take on his detractors. The writ petition was drafted by 3.00 am on Monday morning and submitted before the Court on the same day.
ECONOMIC TIMES
Even now, it is not too late to douse the controversy eating up the reputation, primarily, of defence minister AK Antony and the UPA government and, secondarily, of the Indian Army. The controversy over the date of birth of chief of army staff Gen V K Singh should be settled in an honourable fashion.
The General, apparently, is more interested in getting his age record straightened out and his name cleared than in how long he stays on as army chief. He has reportedly no problem stepping down when the government wants him to. But the common people do have a problem, for a matter of principle is involved. The matter of principle is straightforward: a plan to anoint a particular person as chief of the army staff besmirching the name of an honourable soldier should not succeed.
If a section of the army brass deliberately got Gen V K Singh's date of birth recorded as May 10, 1950, instead of May 10, 1951, the only reason would be to ensure that Gen Singh retired in time to allow a favoured person to succeed him as the army chief. If Gen Singh's year of birth is 1951, he would retire a year later, and so would the intended successor, leaving the coveted post of army chief to someone else.
The precise identity of the favoured successor and of the successor were Gen Singh to stay on till 2013 is immaterial. The choice of India's army chief should not be determined by a conspiracy. If the civilian government has to establish its authority over the armed forces fully and completely, it is in demonstrating and consolidating this principle, not by insisting it has the writ to determine when someone was born.
If it wants to, the government can askGen Singh to go tomorrow, after setting his age record straight; but then, it should follow through by appointing as his successor not the intended beneficiary of a probable conspiracy but someone else.
V K Singh was born in an army hospital. The army keeps records of births and deaths. Army records show that Singh was born on May 10, 1951. His matriculation certificate says he was born on that date. It is in an application form submitted to the National Defence Academy that the 1950 date appears.
The General's case is that the application form was filled by the staff of his school, who made an error. He sought to rectify this error time and again, after he joined the service. This application form was the basis for a wrong date entering his official records.
In a telling comment on the efficiency of administration in the Indian Army, two sets of records were maintained in the army as to his date of birth, one in the Military Secretary's branch and the other in the Adjutant General's office. The Adjutant General's office is supposed to be the official record keeper and the citations accompanying V K Singh's many medals carry the date of birth May 10, 1951.
The MS branch continued with the 1950 date.
This mattered little to anyone till his promotion came up in 2006 to corps commander. Since corps commanders are the guys in the running for the post of chief of the army staff, Singh's date of birth mattered for the line of succession that would be followed.
Singh was virtually coerced into accepting 1950 as the year of his birth by the MS branch. He was told that his promotion was at stake, if he did not accept that date. Gen Singh made a wishy-washy promise to accept whatever was in the organisation's larger interest. This was interpreted by the MS branch to show that he had accepted 1950 as the year of his birth. He got his promotion and subsequently rose to the position of the army chief.
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