Dear Gajendra Singhji ,
Unfortunately, as the General is known to be upright and declined awards
for so called encounter deaths in the Valley and maintained that the Army
should at all times maintain the highest standards of integrity and was
required to be deployed for the country's national security and not in regions
where mining interests were predominant as these were regions where Indian
citizens were affected , and were not the enemy .
The Supreme Court order is on the face of it defective . After clearly holding
that the decision of the MOD in the statutory complaint violated the principles
of natural justice and had to be quashed/withdrawn , the statutory complaint
revives and has not been to be disposed off ; therefore the court while
logically recording at the second hearing that the government was withdrawing
the order in the statutory complaint, ought to have immediately directed that
the statutory complaint was once again was required to be heard/considered by
the MOD taking into consideration the relevant documents on record including
the matriculation certificate forwarded to the NDA, IMA and other institutions,
that is immediately on recruitment ,as they had already observed that the
legal opinion of the Attorney General relating interalia to a line of
succession could not be the basis for the MOD's decision/order in the
statutory complaint , as the MOD has to consider the factual position and
decide a statutory and cannot rely on an opinion of the Attorney General . This
prima facie indicated non application of mind by the concerned authority .
Why this was not done and communications in the earlier non-statutor
representations made revived, which were also based on the earlier opinion of
the Attorney General , indicates that all is far from well in the Supreme
Court which leaves issues undecided or unimplemented , or selectively decides
issues leaving vital matters unsettled in decisions,which has already invited
critical observations in the media and will continue to do so as even prima
facie this is a case where the birth date of a Lt. General has been fabricated
in 2006 in collusion with the MOD , continued at the instance of the highest
functionaries of the Republic .
The Attorney General 's opinion has been influenced by the succession issue and
this is on the face of the opinion and therefore had to be quashed/withdrawn in
which case the statutory revives for decision !!!
How on earth does the Republic function with lawless functionaries of major
political formations !!!!!
I had informed you at the outset that the last time round some players who were
concealed would get exposed . Can anyone be a leader who relies on region ,
caste, religion or other extraneous factor ! Where are the Indians ! The real
reason why the General went to court risking his own reputation was that he
should not be held responsible for what the government was about to do in
respect of the leadership of the Army at a moment sensitive for South Asia .Now
he can sleep in peace he did more than his best to introduce accountability
into the Army, the MOD and those at the highest levels . There are others who
will have sleepless nights, political parties , leaders , armed forces officers
who have succumbed , including the two Judges of the Supreme Court who did not
rise to the occasion .
Before the General went to Court he was fortified by the opinion of four
former Judges of the Supreme Court . This was what happened to the General .
What about the average citizen , the tribal people in the heartlands of India ,
the dalits in rural areas repeatedly attacked , the minorities who were
arrested from one state to another in fake terrorist cases , workers struggling
for a fair wage and minimal employment security or retrenchment compensation .
It was a battle for constitutional functioning which has been lost not by the
General, but by the Republic . To-morrow his men cannot hold him responsible
for not doing his best to expose the rot inside the institution and the MOD
going to the highest level .
Niloufer
----- Original Message -----
From: gajendra singh
To: [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected]
; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ;
[email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ;
[email protected]
Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2012 8:52 AM
Subject: Only Losers;Gen VK Singh likely to resign after loss in court
I had hinted at cronyism .Who cares .
Gen VK Singh likely to resign after loss in court
Rajat Pandit.TOI 11F12
NEW DELHI: Will he or won't he? Resign, that is. The dominant sentiment in
South Block, after General Vijay Kumar Singh lost the last battle of his career
on Friday, was that the Army chief should put in his papers since continuing in
office had become simply "untenable".
Some in the Army chief's lobby, reeling under the shock of the defeat in
court, also admitted that Gen Singh was "actively considering" resignation
despite his lawyers claiming "his honour and integrity" had been "restored".
Beyond lobbies and spin-doctoring, both military and civilian officers
acknowledge the "grim reality" that "a huge trust deficit" has emerged between
Gen Singh, who left for Jaipur on an official visit around 4.30 pm, and defence
minister A K Antony.
When he assumed office in April 2010, Gen Singh promised to improve the
Army's "internal health" by getting rid of corruption and transforming the
1.13-million force into a lean, mean fighting machine. Instead, he has ended up
sharpening the infamous civil-military divide.
"Several Army projects and proposals, modernization and otherwise, are in a
limbo. The Army itself is divided down the ranks. Gen Singh will virtually be
persona non grata in South Block. A fresh start is needed," said a top military
officer.
Another senior officer, among the chief's sympathizers, added, "Gen Singh,
who was wronged by two previous chiefs but failed to get his due, can retrieve
some lost moral ground by submitting his resignation. It will also put the
government in a fix over the succession chain."
The defence ministry, however, does not think so. There is a pool of seven
Army commanders (chiefs of one training and six regional commands) and a
vice-chief to pick from if the chief resigns. "The government will cross the
bridge once it comes to it," said a senior official.
It's well known by now that Gen Singh does not want Eastern Army commander
Lt-Gen Bikram Singh (Sikh Light Infantry) to succeed him since he believes his
date of birth was not corrected despite his repeated attempts as former chiefs
like Gen J J Singh and Gen Deepak Kapoorwanted to fix the succession chain in
Lt-Gen Bikram Singh's favour.
But with the government already beginning the process to appoint the new
chief, Lt-Gen Bikram Singh remains the clear front-runner for the coveted post
when Gen V K Singh retires on May 31 as scheduled.
But if the Army chief resigns beforehand, it will queer the pitch. As of now,
Western Army commander Lt-Gen Shankar Ghosh (Guards Regiment) and Central Army
commander V K Ahluwalia (Artillery), both commissioned in November 1971, are
senior to Lt-Gen Bikram Singh, who is from the March 1972 batch.
While Lt-Gen Ahluwalia retires this month-end, Lt-Gen Ghosh has to call it a
day on May 31. So, the two will retire if the chief carries on till May 31,
paving the way for Lt-Gen Bikram Singh.
Successive governments have almost always upheld the seniority principle to
anoint a new military chief, except in extremely rare instances like Lt-Gen S K
Sinha's supersession by Gen A S Vaidya as Army chief by Indira Gandhi in the
early 1980s.
Incidentally, if Gen V K Singh's year of birth had been settled at 1951, as
he wanted, then present Northern Army commander Lt-Gen K T Parnaik would have
taken over since the former would have continued in office till March 2013.
A battle without winners
Rahul Bedi Hindu Oped 10F12
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article2875966.ece
The row over General V.K. Singh's age has created fissures between the Army
and the Ministry of Defence. The main victim is the modernisation of the Army.
Irrespective of the outcome of the Mexican stand-off between General V.K.
Singh and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) over his disputed date of birth, both
the Army and the Defence Ministry are eventually bound to be the losers in
equal measure.
Sadly, Gen. Singh's tenure, whenever he retires will be known principally for
his age dispute, attendant subterfuges by his predecessors to allegedly ensure
their favoured candidates' succession to the Army's top job and the MoD's
disingenuous role in what was seemingly an avoidable hullabaloo.
The battle over “reconciling” the commander-in-chief's birth date will also
go down, without prejudice to either of the two disputants, as possibly the
most bizarre challenge ever faced by any modern military, leave alone the
world's third largest army.
But closure in the matter, in a largely graceless and unforgiving system,
will almost certainly engender grief and bitterness in varying measure for the
feuding parties where such eventual outcomes are rarely, if at all, handled
with either goodwill or magnanimity.
Consider the Hobbesian options:
If Gen. Singh's honour is vindicated by the Supreme Court, backroom
negotiations or both, the Army despite avowals to the contrary, would consider
it a long overdue slap to the overbearing MoD.
Conceding 1951 to be Gen Singh's birth year would also unquestioningly
reinforce the chief's right to serve an additional 10 months in office till
March 2013 in order to complete the legitimate tenure to which the solider,
much lauded in recent weeks by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)
administration, was appointed in March 2010. This would also make him eligible
for all “attendant benefits” including pay and emoluments as Gen. Singh has
demanded in his Supreme Court petition.
However, retiring Gen. Singh in May 2010 following a “deal” or a “compromise”
on vindicating his honour though well within the government's purview, would
effectively make Service rules infractuous, rendering even critical military
tenures negotiable entities by vested political interests.
This recalls the equally significant, but highly questionable appointment of
Sanjeev Tripathi as the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief on December 30,
2010 — the day he was superannuating having attained the age of 60 — after the
incumbent K.C. Verma “voluntarily” advanced his retirement date by one month,
enabling his junior to succeed him and secure an additional two years in office.
Mr. Verma was reportedly “advised” by the UPA that “offering” to step down as
RAW chief 30 days earlier, thereby facilitating Mr. Tripathi's ascension, would
make him eligible to head the signals intelligence gathering agency, the
National Technical Research Organisation. Thirteen months later, Mr. Verma is
still awaiting that appointment.
Conversely, if the MoD prevails over the Army chief, its bureaucrats will
chalk it up as yet another, albeit belaboured, victory in their endless rounds
of put-me-downs of the uniforms which, in the larger sense really epitomises
the Singh-MoD controversy.
HAS LED TO SPLIT
The dispute has also created avoidable fault lines within the Services, with
many officers supporting the Chief and others believing him to be driven by
personal ambition.
Either way, the losing side — whether that's the Army or the MoD,
irrespective of the ongoing frenetic negotiations seeking an equitable
resolution — will sulk and opportunity presenting, is sure to strike back. In
short, widening fissures between Army headquarters and the MoD, simmering for
decades and now having reached boiling point, will take long to be salved
irrespective of the placatory noises from both sides.
ISSUE OF MODERNISATION
Consequently, Gen. Singh's successor will, doubtless, be more preoccupied
with mending these ruptures rather than getting on with the urgent brief of
modernising the Army's matériel that desperately needs rejuvenating to enable
it operate in a turbulent, militarily sophisticated and increasingly
nuclearised neighbourhood.
The age controversy, which has been rumbling ever since Gen. Singh took over
and reached a critical stage in May 2011, has already stymied the Army's
long-delayed modernisation with little or nothing having being achieved in this
field over the past two years, compared with the frantic activity in the two
other Services.
A mid-2011 report by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and global
financial consultants KPMG, for instance revealed that since 2007, India had
confirmed over $25 billion worth of military purchases of which the Indian Air
Force's share was $17.46 billion, the Indian Navy's $6.16 billion, the Indian
Coast Guard's $616 million and the Indian Army's a mere $420 million.
It remains an open secret that the equipment profile of the army's combat
arms — infantry and armour — remains woefully inadequate whilst that of support
arms like artillery, air defence and the Army Aviation Corps (AAC) to name a
few, is equally deficient and obsolete.
By the Army's own admittance, a large proportion of its Main Battle Tank
T72M1 “Ajeya” fleet is night blind as is the AAC, both of which constitute a
crucial ingredient of the controversial “cold start” doctrine of launching a
pre-emptive offensive against Pakistan in a limited war scenario to achieve
negotiable military gains in a nuclear weapons environment.
The scandalous artillery deficiency is plagued by an endless cycle of tenders
issued, withdrawn and re-issued and several rounds of inconclusive trials
conducted, all further complicated by the MoD totally or conditionally
blacklisting several top howitzer vendors without providing clarity on their
respective status.
More worryingly, some 359 infantry battalions trained ironically for nuclear
warfare await the import of a basic weapon system: the 5.56mm assault rifle
(AR) to replace the inefficient, locally designed but costly, Indian Small Arms
System (INSAS) AR which the army has tentatively employed since the mid-1990's
and now abandoned after massive investments.
A tender for 66,000 ARs was issued to 43 overseas vendors last November.
Given the Army's and the MoD's cumbersome field trials, evaluation and price
negotiation procedures, a winner is not likely to emerge for at least two years
if not longer.
Alongside, the army's Fast Track Procurement route to acquire equipment for
operational readiness with a 12-14 month timeline rarely ever meets that
target, taking twice if not three times as long to execute.
And while Gen. Singh could not have even partially made good these deferred
matériel shortcomings during his tenure, the institutional antagonism his birth
date has generated is undeniably a reason that the Army's overdue modernisation
drive has had to be postponed, something that will eventually have an impact on
the country's defence posture. Is setting the record straight on his age the
price worth paying?
(Rahul Bedi is India correspondent for Jane's Defence Weekly and is based in
New Delhi.)
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