Gen Singh gets retirement note, tenure to end in May

New Delhi: After a delay of over seven months, the Army has finally issued a retirement note to its chief Gen V K Singh communicating to him that his tenure will end on 31 May, official sources said today. Gen Singh, who is in Jodhpur today, was issued the Retirement Warning Letter (RWL) by the Military Secretary branch recently, they said. RWL is normally given to officers about 10-11 months before their due date of retirement but it had not been issued to Gen Singh as he had filed official pleas to get his date of birth changed. [caption id=“attachment_228410” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Gen V K Singh. AFP”] [/caption] After rejecting his plea to change his date of birth to 10 May, 1951, the Defence Ministry in November last year had asked the MS branch to issue the letter. The MS branch had then expressed its inability to do so saying the matter was sub-judice. The Army chief had at that time filed the Statutory Complaint with Defence Minister A K Antony to accept 10 May, 1951 as his date of birth. On 10 February, the Army Chief withdrew his plea on the age issue in the Supreme Court which held that 10 May, 1950 will be considered as his date of birth in service records. The Defence Ministry has shortlisted three senior officers - Eastern Army Commander Lt Gen Bikram Singh, Army Vice Chief Lt Gen Shri Krishna Singh and Northern Army Commander Lt Gen K T Parnaik - to succeed him. PTI