Army chief relents, Avadesh faces trial

NEW DELHI: Army chief General Deepak Kapoor on Friday ordered the court martial of his aide and military secretary, Lt Gen Avadesh Prakash, in the Sukhna land scam. The decision to initiate disciplinary action against Lt Gen Prakash follows the intervention of defence minister A K Antony, who overruled an earlier decision of Gen Kapoor to limit the penalty against the top military officer to only “administrative action” while ordering the court martial of a co-accused, Lt Gen P K Rath.

The court martial order against Prakash makes him the first seniormost, three-star general of the Army to face such action. The order comes barely two days ahead of Prakash’s retirement from military service on January 31.
“The Army chief has ordered disciplinary action against Lt Gen Prakash, who will face a court martial in the Sukhna land scam. The chief has stuck to the advice from Antony in the case,” agency reports quoted defence ministry sources as saying.

Prakash, who is considered close to Gen Kapoor on account of being one of his eight aides, was found culpable in the Sukna land scam along with the then 33 Corps Commander, Lt Gen P K Rath, his chief of staff Lt Gen Ramesh Halgali and the then Brigadier (Administration), Maj Gen P C Sen.

After the court of inquiry indicted all the general-officers in the case, eastern Army commander Lt Gen V K Singh, who is the Army chief-designate, had recommended “termination of service” of Prakash and administrative action against the other officers.

However, Kapoor chose to only order the court martial of Rath — believed to only carrying out orders from Prakash — and issued show-cause notices to the other accused, including Prakash, for administrative action. This prompted defence ministry Antony to ask why the officers, found culpable by the probe for the same offence under the Army Act, were meted out different punishments. Antony then “advised” the Army chief to order disciplinary action against Lt Gen Prakash.

Prakash is among four senior officers facing investigation over charges that they conspired to aid the transfer of a 71-acre tea estate adjacent to Sukna military station to builder Dilip Agarwal on the pretext of opening an educational campus affiliated to the Ajmer-based Mayo College.