Army chief age row: It’s 1950

Army chief General VK Singh’s attempt to retain May 10, 1951, as his date of birth came crashing down as the Supreme Court (SC) upheld the government’s contention that his year of birth was recorded as 1950. The court said while it had complete faith in Gen Singh’s integrity, it would go by the government’s service records. In view of this, Gen Singh will have to retire on May 31 this year.

The three-hour session in the SC boiled down to the fact that Gen Singh, as a young student, had filled in 1950 as his birth year when he had applied for the National Defence Academy. The SC felt that since this led to a chain of documents at the “threshold” that recorded his birth year as 1950, little could be done at this stage.

For Gen Singh, who spent nearly 40 years of his career maintaining the date as 1951, the pronouncements came as a crushing blow. Just before the SC broke for lunch, it asked the army chief’s counsel Puneet Bali whether he would like to withdraw the case to prevent an adverse order. As the court reconvened, Bali said they were withdrawing the writ petition while the army chief left for Jaipur on a scheduled visit. Sources close to him said he was seriously contemplating putting in his papers after the developments.

The SC and the government maintained that Gen Singh’s contribution to the nation was commendable. “We have full faith in you (Gen Singh); we don’t doubt your integrity,” a division bench headed by justice RM Lodha said.

“Wise people are those who move with the wind. We are more concerned with the morale of the army and a right message should go from here — 13 lakh army personnel are watching this court,” the SC said. Attorney general Goolam Vahanvati told the SC that the government and the raksha mantri have full faith and confidence in Gen Singh to lead the army.

The SC said it was not in favour of entertaining Gen Singh’s petition that his date of birth should be treated in official records as May 10, 1951. The court said the issue of date of birth is a personal issue and need not be discussed in the public
domain.

The court said Gen Singh has to abide to his commitment and honour his letters written in 2008 and 2009 accepting his date of birth as May 10, 1950. “You (Singh) are doing a great service to the nation. Your stand was fair, you have not concealed anything and we respect the same,” the court said.

At the beginning of the hearing, Vahanvati told the court that government had withdrawn its December 30, 2011, order rejecting Gen Singh’s statutory complaint on his age issue. He, however, made it clear that the government stands by its July 2011 decision to treat his date of birth as May 10, 1950.

The SC asked tough questions to Gen Singh on why he did not get the records corrected. “Why did you remain silent for so many years? Why have you not followed his complaint with the UPSC,” the bench asked Bali. He said it was victory for both sides as the matter has been resolved amicably. The defence ministry issued a statement saying they were happy that the issue has been resolved.