SC upholds government position on younger officers in Army combat arms

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the government’s stance on having younger commanding officers in the combat and infantry arms of the army, putting to rest questions on preferential promotions as part of the 2009 "Command Exit Policy’. The Supreme Court has further directed the government to create 141 vacancies to accommodate promotions to commanding officers from combat arms other than the Infantry and Artillery.

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After the Ministry of Defence approved the policy in 2009, its preferential nature of according promotions to only combat arms had raised questions on the justness of such a policy for officers of services like ASC.

The Command and Exit policy was put in place after the AV Singh Committee Report recommendations called for younger and fitter officers to assume charge as commanding officers of infantry and artillery units. These recommendations listed out vacancies between 2004 and 2009 to reduce the age of commanding officers at the rank of Colonels. While the first lot of 750 was distributed on a pro-rata basis, the second was restricted to the combat units on the basis of the command exit policy suggested by the report.

Dubbing it as "unfair" this practice was challenged in the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) by officers of the services. The AFT ruled in their favour, calling the policy biased in nature. As reported by ET earlier, the Centre appealed against this in the apex court stating that the tribunal's decision would go against the goal of ensuring younger commanders at the helm of fighting units.

The Supreme Court has directed the defence ministry to also look at promotions of other arms in a fair and just manner. The policy had created some disquiet between combat and non-combat services due to its preferential treatment of the former.