Delhi HC asks Centre, others to file reply on plea challenging Army's promotion policy of 2017

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday asked the Centre and others to file a reply on the plea challenging the Army's promotion policy formulated in 2017 whereby, the officers holding the rank of Major General from the Intelligence Corps is specifically held to be ineligible for consideration for promotion to the rank of Lieutenant General for Non-General Cadre Staff Stream vacancies (NGCSS).

A division bench of Justice Manmohan and Justice Navin Chawla asked the Centre and the Chief of Army Staff and Military Secretary to file their reply on the petition.

The petition was filed by Major General SS Khara through advocates Neela Gokhale, Kushal Choudhary. The petitioner, a Major General, holds the designation of Additional Directorate General (ADG) of Military Intelligence (B) in the Indian Army.

He has challenged the promotion policy formulated by the respondents dated December 23, 2017, whereby the officers holding the rank of Major General from the Intelligence Corps are specifically held to be ineligible for consideration for promotion to the rank of Lt. General for Non-General Cadre Staff Stream vacancies (NGCSS).

The petitioner said that he is being aggrieved by the arbitrary and unreasonable policy of the respondents. He submitted that the Intelligence Corps is categorised as an arm in the Indian Army, along with other officers and troops of all other arms namely Infantry, Mechanised Infantry, Armoured, Artillery, Signals, Engineers, Army Air Defence, Army Aviation, and others.

He submitted that the Services Corps, predominantly responsible for logistics, support and supply include AOC, ASC and EME.

He also submitted that the Indian Army's policy of NGCSS allocated 10 vacancies of Lt. General by promoting Major Generals from all arms, save and except Intelligence Corps and Army Aviation, but including the streams/corps of Services, over and above the Corps stream vacancies in their own streams. These 10 vacancies were termed as NGCSS, the petitioner said.

"It is submitted that the Army is a cohesive unit comprising of officers from all the arms and services within its organisation, who work like cogs in a clock, and inter-dependently discharge the function of defending our nation from external and internal threats, however, within the organisation wherein no one arm/service is greater than the other, the promotion policy in question specifically ostracises the Intelligence Corps from availing the vacancies provided in the NGCSS, which amounts to apparent discrimination of the Petitioner and his Corps," the petitioner said.

( With inputs from ANI )