Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta gave a new twist to the controversy suggesting that the issue involved the command and control relationship.
Navy chief blames media for hyping the salary aspect
NEW DELHI: Amid reports that the three defence service chiefs were ticked off for their unprecedented defiance over the Pay Commission report, Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta gave a new twist to the controversy suggesting that the issue involved the command and control relationship between the armed forces’ officers and their civilian counterparts.
Mehta, Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, said the money aspect has been overplayed by the media. “It is about status and equivalence that existed (before the Pay Commission) and the command and control relationship (between the armed forces officers and their civilian counterparts),” he said days after the three service chiefs refused to implement the Pay Commission report unless “anomalies” are rectified.
Mehta was speaking at a Territorial Army day parade where defence minister AK Antony, Army Chief Gen Deepak Kapoor and Air Chief F H Major were present. Kapoor and Major were walking alongside Mehta when he made these remarks but they did not comment. Antony, who is reported to have conveyed the government’s unhappiness to the service chiefs over their stand, took the salute at the parade and left immediatelythereafter skipping customary tea.
“How it (status, equality, command and control structure) has been disturbed (by the pay commission report), nobody knows,” Mehta said when asked about the issues raised during the meeting of the services chiefs with External Affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee. who heads the 3-member committee to look into the grievances of the armed forces relating to the Pay Commission.
After the government okayed the Pay Commission report in August, the armed forces refused to implement it describing it as discriminatory. They raised a host of issues including placing Lieutenant Colonels in Pay Band-4, Grade Pay for officers from Captains to Brigadiers, providing the Higher Administrative Grade Plus pay scales to Lieutenant Generals and restoring pension benefits of jawans.
At Antony’s behest, the three chiefs agreed to implement the revised pay scales “temporarily”. The government also announced that the defence personnel would be paid an ad-hoc amount of the 40 per cent arrears under the CPC, with retrospective effect from January 1, 2006.
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