SC raps Centre for blaming Kargil heroes

R Sedhuraman

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, April 22

The Supreme Court today slammed the Centre for “insulting” the 1999 Kargil war heroes by blaming them for being “sluggish” in their initial response to Pakistani incursions.

“Why only Army officers are responsible for the sluggishness? It is at every level,” a Bench comprising Justices TS Thakur and R Banumathi remarked while hearing the Centre’s appeal against the Armed Forces Tribunal’s March 2, 2015 order quashing the January 2009 promotion policy.

Under the policy, the government has restricted about 750 additional posts of Colonels to the combat units — infantry, mechanised infantry and the armoured corps. The SC has already stayed the AFT order after a hearing on March 25.

“Is it not an insult to those who make the supreme sacrifice for the country? Do you mean to say that they died because they were sluggish,” the Bench asked Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Maninder Singh, who argued for the Centre. The Bench also wanted to know if there was any sluggishness in the import of coffins from abroad during the Kargil war.

The Bench made the remarks when Singh sought to explain the logic behind the promotion policy by stating that its genesis could be traced to the Kargil war when there was a “seemingly perceived sluggishness” on the part of our armed forces in their initial response.

The Ajay Vikram Singh Committee and other panels that had gone into the country’s response to the incursions had talked about the lapses and recommended a reduction in the average age of Colonels of the combat units from 40-42 to about 37 in line with the practice in Pakistan, China and Israel, the ASG said.

The Centre has come in appeal against the AFT order, passed at the instance of those in the other units who were denied of promotion under the new policy, known as “command and exit” model. The additional posts were necessary to accommodate the Colonels being released from the responsibility of commanding the units after holding the post from the age of 37 to 39-40, the ASG said.

At this, the Bench wanted to know as to whether the armoured units could successfully fight a war if the ordinance corps which supplied ammunition or the supply corpse which brought food items remained sluggish. “They are as much integral to fighting the war as the combat units are,” it noted.