Over 100 Indian Army officers move Supreme Court over 'unjust and discriminatory' promotion policy

India’s new defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman faces a fresh challenge within days of assuming charge as more than 100 Indian Army officers have moved the Supreme Court, alleging “discrimination and injustice” in the promotion of officers of the Services Corps. According to The New Indian Express, over 100 serving officers have moved the apex court against the Army Headquarters deploying them in operations but denying them benefits. The officers were named as ’non-combatants’ by the army in its submission before the apex court last year. As per the report, the Army Headquarters had called the services cadre (roughly 20 percent of the army) ’non-operational’. [caption id=“attachment_3301546” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] As a result, many personnel among the service cadre felt wronged by the order and expressed their objection to report on operational postings – including in forward and counter-insurgency areas. “This act of army and Union government (discrimination in promotion) has created tremendous injustice to the petitioners and others which is detrimental to the morale of the officers and, in turn, to the defence of the country,” the petitioners in the case said, as per The Times of India. The crux of the argument in the joint petition is that since services cadre officers are deployed in operational areas, where they tackle challenges similar challenges to combat arms corps, then why should the army deprive them of promotional avenues. The 100 or so servicing officers have claimed that they were falsely declared as ’non-operational’. According to The New Indian Express report, the petitioners stated that legally they are not supposed to wield arms as noncombatants, yet they are being used in operations. “The army or the government has no power to declare any part of regular army ’non-operational’, since the officers of the regular army are operational by statute,” read the petition. On 15 February last year, the apex court had upheld the army’s ‘Command-Exit model’ for the promotion of its officers. As per this policy, preferential promotion of officers serving in the command unit was allowed. The decision of the apex court came nearly a year after the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) struck down the policy, calling it ‘discriminatory’ and violative of Article 14 of the Indian Constitution, according to India.com. The petitioners sought to challenge the selective treatment of services corps officers as ‘operational’ and ’non-operational’ as per convenience without questioning the Supreme Court’s 15 February decision. “The petitioners also wish to draw the attention of the Supreme Court that the sacrifices of officers of services corps are at par, if not more, with officers of combat arms corps in the Indian Army,” they said, according to The Times of India. The Command-Exit model policy was believed to be highly skewed in favour of Infantry and Artillery, as compared to other branches. It left many officers feeling miffed, which flamed an unrest as officers claimed they were adversely affected by the decision. According to The Indian Express, after the army decided to switch to the Command-Exit policy after 2009, five officers had approached the AFT against the policy. The AFT had upheld their contention and ruled that the policy violated Article 14 (equality before the law & equal protection within the territory of India). The government then filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court against the AFT judgment. On 25 March, the apex court had stayed the AFT ruling.