In Army chief age row, it’s now ‘war minus the shooting’

“Disobedient” and “mutinous”. The war of words in the controversy over determining Army chief VK Singh’s age is becoming very shrill, with very disturbing consequences. According to reports, Defence Minister AK Antony has received “sensitive advice” from the legal cell of his ministry. Antony has been advised that the failure of the Adjutant General (AG) branch in the Army, which is the official keeper of records, to comply with an order to change the Army chief’s date of birth on its records, amounts to “disobedience with grave implications,” according to Headlines Today. More seriously, the advice says, the AG branch’s “refusal to comply with an executive order borders on the mutinous.” [caption id=“attachment_191464” align=“alignright” width=“380” caption=“The charge of “disobedience” and “mutiny” are serious.. Image courtesy PIB”]  [/caption] The invocation of the words “disobedience” and “mutinous”, with the suggestion that a division of the Army is challenging the lawful authority of the civilian government, bodes ill for relations between the two authorities. The legal cell’s advice relates to a directive from the government to the AG branch to change the General’s age on its records to 10 May 1950, That directive was sent out On 23 January, a week after Singh moved a petition in the Supreme Court on 16 January, which caught the ministry by surprise. The letter from the ministry directed the AG branch to ensure “strict compliance without any further loss of time” and to send a compliance report to the ministry “at the earliest.” The AG’s branch, the official record-keeper, records the general’s date of birth as 10 May 1951 on the basis of his matriculation certificate. The older date of birth emanated from the Military Secretary (MS) branch, during the time of Gen Deepak Kapoor and his then Military Secretary, Lt Gen Avadesh Prakash. Gen Kapoor’s name has come up in connection with the allotment of a flat to him in the Adarsh Society in Mumbai; Avadesh Praksh has been convicted by an army court in the Sukna land scam case. Officials in the Defence Ministry are also claiming that the fact that the AG branch and the MS branch function directly under the Army chief points to a “conflict of interest” in the case relating to the Army chief’s age. The Times of India reports, quoting government sources, that a similar directive had been issued to the AG branch in July 2011, when the latter had evidently attempted to amend Singh’s year of birth from 1950 to 1951. The latest twist to the controversy, with the defence ministry’s legal cell suggesting that the AG branch’s inaction amounts to “mutiny”, has grave implications for civilian-military relations.