Relief for non-combat Army officers

To ensure that there is no discrimination between combat and non-combat officers in promotion to the post of colonel in the Army, the Centre on Thursday informed the Supreme Court that 141 additional posts of colonel will be created over a period of time to promote non-combat officers also.

Additional solicitor-general Maninder Singh made this submission before a bench of Justices T.S. Thakur and Kurian Joseph hearing an appeal from the Centre against an order of the Armed Forces Tribunal quashing the January 2009 promotion policy which allowed promotion as colonels to the combat units, infan-try, mechanised infantry and the armoured corps and not to those in engineering, signals and artillery units.

The ASG informed the court that in view of the stand taken by the government to treat all officers alike, those working in non-combat units will be eligible for promotion as colonels. He said the promotion will be worked out from 2009 for the eligible non-combat officers.

When Mr Thakur pointed out that the government had committed a mistake at the first instance by treating the combat and non-combat officers differently, the ASG conceded that it was a “bonafide mistake” which has now been corrected.

During the course of hearing Mr Thakur had observed “The country could not afford to have Army personnel who were dissatisfied, disgruntled and demoralised” and wanted the government to reconsider its policy.

The ASG was responding to the court’s query in the last hearing as to how the Army would keep its promise to non-combat officers that they would not be discriminated against despite the fact that the additional vacancies for the ranks of colonel and above were meant only for combat units.

The affected officers contended that Army should be treated as a single cadre and all promotions should be distributed equitably. Infantry fights from bunkers, while support services personnel don’t have such protection. Support services fought wars marching shoulder-to-shoulder with the infantry and never refused to cross the border, citing lesser promotional opportunities. Army needs to fight as one cohesive unit.

It was argued that the real purpose behind the model is to enable infantry to capture all higher positions. Infantry can’t be a separate cadre. It was pointed out by the affected officers that under the 2004 policy 750 posts were available for promotion to all the 11 units on pro rata basis. But in the 2009 policy, the number of posts was reduced to provide for promotion only to combat officers.

It was justified by the government on the ground that those who were in the forefront of the battlefield and faced the bullets were entitled to better promotional avenues. Rejecting the Centre’s argument that it was only implementing the Ajay Vikram Singh committee’s report, they submitted that the report is just a charade to discriminate against non-infantry personnel. The Bench posted the matter for further hearing on November 19 to enable the affected officers to respond to ASG’s offer to create additional posts for their promotion.