Hindustan Times

Subscribe to Inside StoryNews FeedSubscribe to Inside StoryComments

HT Home / Blogs Home > Inside Story / India / Hitting the General below the belt

Hitting the General below the belt



Before Army chief General Vijay Kumar Singh’s doughty daughter landed up at the Supreme Court registry to file a writ petition on behalf of her father on Monday evening, the officer wrote to Defence Minister A K Antony that he was taking legal recourse in the age issue.

General Singh informed Antony that he had been forced to go to the court to prevent a possible adverse legal fallout of another petition filed before by the Rohtak chapter of the so-called Grenadiers Association and with which he had no truck in any way. It is another matter that a court insider leaked the news of General Singh going to court to TV news channels much before his letter reached Antony on Monday.

General Singh was advised by his lawyers that his legal options on the date of birth issue would be closed if the Supreme Court took up the Grenadiers Association’s petition as it was rather insidious and factually inaccurate in many places. For instance, the association’s petition stated that Lt. General Bikramjeet Singh, presently Eastern Army Commander and in line for the Army Chief’s job, was related to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Given such inaccuracies, the Supreme Court in all probability would have taken a rather poor view of the submission and would have foreclosed all options for General Singh. Now that General Singh has sought legal remedy to determine whether he was born in 1950 or 1951, it would be interesting to shed light on the behind the scenes and unsuccessful dialogue between him and the government over what the he terms as an honour and integrity issue. General Singh in his petition has sought interim relief from the court over the rejection of his statutory complaint on the age issue by the Defence Minister on December 30, 2011. After General Singh filed his statutory complaint before Antony on August 25, 2011, he met UPA wise man and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and told him what he had done.

Mukherjee looked at General Singh and said that he took this statutory complaint as an opportunity and not a challenge for the government. General Singh told Mukherjee that the complaint was only aimed at rectifying his age and not programmed to increase his tenure as Army Chief — a matter which is the prerogative of the government. For the next four months, a key government interlocutor and a close friend of Singh played the messenger in the hope that an amicable compromise could be reached. The interlocutor failed. Not because his or General Singh’s intentions were not honourable but because the UPA has now acquired the habit of speaking in multiple voices.

The final straw for the Chief was a series of slanderous media articles this month which led him to believe that they were being orchestrated by the Defence Ministry. Before General Singh went on an official visit to Myanmar on January 5 he met National Security Advisor Shiv Shanker Menon. Sharp as he is, Menon suggested that the government would come out with a statement making it amply clear that age was not the issue and that it wanted General Singh for other services preferably in the civilian set-up. As the idea was fair, General Singh agreed to it with a single caveat. He said as long as the government agreed that his date of birth was 1951 he was even willing to resign and pave way for whomsoever the UPA wanted to appoint as Army Chief. General Singh returned from Myanmar on January 9 and met Mukherjee, who assured him that he was on the job and solution soon would be found to the age issue.

In the meantime, senior UPA ministers including Antony, P Chidambaram and Salman Khurshid prepared for stage two by calling General Singh a very competent soldier. A solution was in sight and the interlocutor was toiling hard, but then came the series of slanted media articles, which the Army suspects the Defence Ministry of inspiring and that hit at General Singh’s personal integrity. A day before the Army Day on January 15, Antony gave a dressing down to all his officers and made it clear that not a word should be leaked by his ministry. But the damage had been done.

General Singh was awarded the Yudh Seva Medal in 1989-90, the Ati Vasisht Seva Medal in 2006 and the Param Vishisht Seva Medal in 2009 by the President of India with his date of birth May 10, 1951 mentioned on them, but still the inspired media articles took pot shots at him. After hosting At-Home for the President, the Prime Minister and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, General Singh decided to take on his detractors. The writ petition was drafted by 3.00 am on Monday morning and submitted before the Court on the same day.

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (71 votes, average: 4.92 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...

Posted by Shishir Gupta on Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 10:43 am 
Filed under India · Tagged , , , ,

  · Comment (RSS) · Trackback
  • http://twitter.com/pinky12j Suressh

    While every one lauds the valor, honor and integrity of the general, they have also forgot to reckon with the same integrity and honor with which Antony the minister too associated with, and he would not grudge to give whatever is due to a person, let alone the general. So now the matter is subjudice would wish the media and journos keep away in opining on the subject, till the court decides.

    [Reply]

    Javed Reply:
    January 17th, 2012 at 1:00 pm

    hey dumba88 seeing a lot of muck from you for the army chief lately. Pls kindly care to explain – if both of them are of high integrity and are men in charge of their respective areas – then who else has the power to do mischief?? dont you think this is serious & bad reflection on the govt?

    [Reply]

  • Javed

    very informative article in comparision with shallow unresearched edits on this subject from HT itself

    [Reply]

  • Anonymous

    Do we see ominous sign of Civillian-Military fight? Will we see a coup one day when like of Laloo and Sonia will be hauled up in military court? Just thinking loud…

    [Reply]

  • Kumars1

    The politicians and bereaucrats have a chip on their shoulder and an inferiority complex where army men are concerned. Therefore these scumbags never miss an oppurtunity to humiliate army people. They humiliated upright heroes like General Thimayya and Field Marshal Manekshaw among others. They praise Bin Laden as ‘Osamaji’. The megalomaniac Krishna Menon, defence minister under Nehru, used to call the Army Chief for 4am meetings for silly reasons. He and Nehru caused the army’s defeat in 1962 by their shoddy mishandling.

    [Reply]

  • Anonymous

    UPA II has faux passed all its governance in the last 3 years.It has abdicated its responsibility in 2G scam CWG scam Adarsh Scam and now the army chief age problem.PM is statue in PMs house.He is not taking any action himself but doing all his talks by promptings by sonia.DM is under sonia.The issue of age of COAS is a issue which should have solved by PM himself but as he didnot took any decision huimself it is made muddy.Now SC would have to say whatever it likes but damage has been done 2 army and govt.

    [Reply]

  • Kulwinder Singh

    If the correct date of birth of Gen V K Singh is May 10,1951 as contended by the Law Ministry as well as the general himself, Gen VK Singh was most probably not eligible, being under age for appearing in the NDA Exam in 1965. UPSC Need to examine the issue and clarify. It appears that wrong date was entered in the application form for NDA with the aim to make him eligible for the exam.”

    It should be clarified as to the age limits criteria for entry into the NDA in 1965, i.e., if the DOB (Year) is claimed to be 1951, did this date come within limits? If not then the General is probably guilty of entering the army by fraudulent means. Was the DOB not compared with the Matriculation Certificate by the UPSC ? If not the UPSC officials should also be punished U/S 120-B IPC. We have to to first check this out.

    [Reply]

  • Bullysangha

    Having been placed in the situation where his integrity was in question Gen VKS did the right thing. However, I do believe that he should never have allowed the previous COAS to browbeat him in accepting a wrong DOB. His written acceptance will be the negative factor.
    Sangha

    [Reply]

  • anil

    Can’t you find anything else in life to think about?

    [Reply]

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/WH4VQ5LEB4I7TE2YNDXG5AWAH4 Khagaraj

    If the homosexuals give up their ‘ in your face’ attitude and missionary kind proselytizing,they would be pretty nice guys.

    [Reply]

    Karan Thakur Reply:
    April 7th, 2012 at 10:25 am

    I agree. I’m still being pretty nice and obeying almost every rule, law religion where as see for yourself my homophobic friends… :-P

    [Reply]

  • http://twitter.com/BootLadyTeri23 Teri Horne

    Re: The rising number of rapes.

    Are the numbers rising, or is it that women feel more confident in REPORTING sexual assaults? If it’s the latter, while still horrible they were attacked, it’s a sign of a progressing society.

    What happens in the bedrooms of consenting adults should not be legislated by governments or religions. If you want to live in a free and equal society, you have to learn tolerance.

    [Reply]

  • Abu Ahmed

    Educational advancement and economic progress would make our society tolerant and humane in time. Its good that the courts have pushed the envelope so some extent.

    [Reply]

  • Karan Thakur

    Its like you’re not aware of truth of your very own culture Go to Wikipedia and visit the places and temples and sites which shows Homosexual Practices in older Hindu religion. Search more, to know more, because less knowledge is always a dangerous knowledge

    And anyhow, Someone being homosexual cant express his sexuality even in locked doors with their lovers means Violation of Right to Expression/Speech/PRIVACY.

    [Reply]

  • Karan Thakur

    Exactly, I agree they should’ve written more supportive examples. Anyhow, I still appreciate HT(Hindustan Times) for spreading awareness. And we always have sites like Wikipedia to guide us with even better examples.. and real sights, place, temples, etc.

    [Reply]

  • Karan Thakur

    Its a way of Nature and Nature made Homosexuals & Heterosexuals.
    Go read about Homosexuality in Nature. You’ll get to see that Nature not only made Human Beings as Homo/Heterosexuals, there are over 1000s of species of animals too, and still counting.

    Link:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals

    [Reply]

  • Karan Thakur

    Yes, it does… and over 10+ friend’s family too support it :-D

    [Reply]

  • Karan Thakur

    Somebody, wants to see personal issues by ignoring the mass affect happening to Homosexual ppl out there. Baby they were born that way. And There is nothing wrong with it. Go up and read my other posts+links.

    [Reply]

  • Karan Thakur

    Because they’re our god and they thought us the way of life and we must follow that… And There is nothing wrong with being Gay :-)

    [Reply]

  • Karan Thakur

    Totally, senseless and baseless comment… :-)
    My dear its nothing like this…

    [Reply]

  • Karan Thakur

    Gods/Gurus came to show us the right path and to enlighten us,
    Not become rigid and narrow minded and life always teaches something new.

    “Human Being is all about Evolution, not stagnation.
    Religion was also meant for making human civilized not rigid”.

    And No Religion/Culture reads being homosexual is wrong, be it any religion.

    [Reply]

  • Gyan

    PM should not have met Zardari, as this wasn’t his political visit. It was just a pilgrim tour. India is a emotional fool, expecting lot of things from a loser.

    [Reply]

  • Gt12563

    We know Mr.Zaradari has no real power and he is living on the mercy of so called strong army man Kayani.He lives always in fear that coup can happen any time and just collecting corrupt money more and more.After becoming President Mr.10% rate has gone up.He did nothing good for his people and they are fed from his adminstration and want change.But for India there is no hope to resolve any of issue with this PPP president.My guess is his days seems to be over.

    [Reply]