Vice-Admiral moves court to challenge supersession

New Delhi: Commander-in-Chief of the Andaman and Nicobar Command Vice-Admiral Bimal Verma has moved an armed forces tribunal seeking to know why he was overlooked as the next Navy Chief despite being the senior-most in the line of command.

Vice-Admiral Verma has said that the government had in an “arbitrary and whimsical” manner ignored the recommendation of the Chief of Naval Staff and appointed his junior Vice-Admiral Karambir Singh as the next Chief of the Indian Navy.

In second supersession affected in the armed forces by the Narendra Modi government, Eastern Naval Command chief Vice-Admiral Singh last month was nominated as the next Navy Chief after Admiral Sunil Lanba retires on May 31.

This is the second time that the seniority principle has been discarded in the Modi government’s tenure, the first being when Gen. Bipin Rawat was appointed as the Army Chief in December 2016 by superseding two officers senior to him.

According to reports, Vice-Admiral Verma said that he feels that the respondents (government) have illegally and in a wrongful manner used the two letters of severe displeasure, which were issued to him in 2005 and 2007, to deny him the post of the Navy Chief.

The two letters were issued to him on October 28, 2005, and June 20, 2007, and he was promoted to the rank of Commodore and Rear Admiral afterwards, thereby taking away the sting of the said letters.

Vice-Admiral Singh is at present serving as the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief (FOC-in-C) of the Eastern Naval Command in Visakhapatnam. He would be the first helicopter pilot of the Indian Navy to be appointed as the Chief of the Naval Staff(CNS) and will be the Navy Chief till November 2021.