Few years ago lead petitioner Lt Col P K Choudhary had filed
petition in Supreme Court against Indian Army regarding the promotion discrimination
among arms and services from the rank of Lieutenant Colonel to Colonel. He quoted
that officers of services are overlooked during the promotion to Colonel.
Finally, Supreme Court has delivered the judgement.
Following are the highlights of the judgement.
1. Defence ministry accepted that they had done the mistake by
designing current promotion system.
2. Present promotion system was designed after introspection
after 1999 Kargil operation.
3. After 1999, it was realised that Indian army battalion
commanding officers used to age above 40+. Whereas that of Pakistan and China
were comparatively young just above 37+.
4. In order to lower the age of battalion commanding officers,
additional 1484 Colonel Posts were produced but distributed only among the
combat arms.
5. The present formula of promotion is ‘command and exit’.
Where a Colonel commands the battalion of over 800 odd soldiers and exits after
finishing his command to a staff appointment.
6. After the historical judgement, MoD will create more 140
Colonel Posts which will be distributed among combat support arms.
7. Combat support arms are namely; Corps of Signals, Army Air
Defence and Engineers.
8. The court also emphasized that officers and soldiers of
infantry confronts the enemy and faces the bullet at the time of operation.
Whereas, the Army Services Corps has a cushion job and they remain in rear.
9. It will be injustice to compare Infantry with Army Services
Corps.
How the new generated
Colonel post will affect the Indian Army?
This decision will help to clear the heavy block in Army Air
Defence for the promotion of Lt Colonel to Colonel. There are several Lt
Colonel in Army Air Defence who are well qualified but still overlooked at the
time of promotion to the rank of Colonel because of the lack of vacancies.
Why Army Air Defence?
The question is that why army air defence is included? Just because
it falls under combat support arm. May be this should be reassessed by the
court as Army Air Defence also does not face any bullet or go in deep inside
enemy territory. May be Lt Colonel P K Chaudhary can use this fact as in
support of Army Services Corps.
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