The ministry of defence on Friday rejected Army Chief General VK Singh’s statutory complaint to settle the dispute over his age.
The ministry of defence on Friday rejected Army Chief General VK Singh’s statutory complaint to settle the dispute over his age. Backed by legal opinion from Attorney General, Defence Ministry handed over its reply to Gen Singh. The Army Chief will now have to seek judicial intervention.
Later in the evening, General Singh met Finance Minister Pranab Mukerjee and apprise him about the development. Mukerjee is learnt to have been appointed as mediator by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to settle dispute between the Defence minister AK Antony and Army chief VK Singh.
However, recently, General Singh has written to the Antony and has maintained it is the question of his honour. He has argued that he does not want an extension in office.
Gen Singh had been waiting for a reply from the MoD on his statutory complaint against the decision to maintain his date of birth as May 10,1950. The dispute over Gen Singh’s age has arisen as he has two dates of birth —May 10, 1950 and May 10, 1951 —mentioned at various places in his official records.
The year of birth will determine when the Army chief will retire. According to the MoD’s stand, this would be in 2012. If it had accepted Gen Singh’s claim, his tenure would end in to 2013.
In August, General VK Singh filed a statutory complaint with MoD. Any response to statutory complaint is to be replied within the stipulated period of 90 days but the ministry had kept the Army Chief on tenterhooks by not taking any decision on the issue.
In November, the MoD referred Gen Singh’s statutory complaint to the law ministry for Attorney General’s opinion.
In his opinion, the AG is believed to have maintained that Gen Singh’s date of birth should be treated as May 10, 1950, as per which he will retire on June one next year.
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