Army in a tizzy after Armed Forces Tribunal quashes promotion policy
A senior officer said this was done on the basis of functional requirements of the force.
By Rajat Pandit, TNN | Updated:
NEW DELHI: The 1.17-million strong Army has been thrown into a tizzy after the armed forces tribunal (AFT) last week quashed its 2009 promotion policy for colonels, which was skewed in favour of infantry and artillery officers as compared to other arms and services.
The AFT principal bench held that the 2009 policy, called the 'Command Exit Model' (CEM), was "discriminatory" and violated Article 14 of the Constitution, which ensures equality before the law. The Army has been directed to consider afresh the case of all those officers who were denied promotion due to the CEM policy, with all arms and services being allocated vacancies on "pro rata basis" as was the norm earlier.
The Army had already postponed a promotion board in the aftermath of the AFT judgment, even as the Adjutant General and Military Secretary branches are holding hectic discussions on the various options available before the force. "One step could be to file a special leave petition in the Supreme Court against the AFT judgement. But no final decision has been taken yet," said a source.
While promotions up to the lieutenant colonel rank are time-bound if the requisite exams are cleared, the rank of colonel and above are based on the result of selection boards in the steeply-pyramidical promotional structure in the Army.
Confronted with a greying profile of the armed forces, the Kargil Review Committee had recommended that battalion commanding officers or colonels should be around 37 years of age, while brigade commanders should be around 45.
This led to the constitution of the A V Singh Committee (AVSC) in 2001 to restructure the officer cadre with two main objectives: reduction in age of battalion and brigade commanders as well as improvement in career aspirations of military officers.
Under AVSC Phase-I, the first 750 vacancies for colonels were distributed from 2005 to 2008 among the different arms on "pro rata basis" of their strength. But the remaining 734 vacancies in 2009 were distributed under the new CEM policy, ushered in by the Army HQ without clearance from the government, and led the infantry to corner 441 and artillery 186 of them.
A senior officer said this was done on the basis of "functional requirements" of the force, in which the infantry and artillery were after all the two biggest arms. "Cadre management has to be done based on operational reasons," he said.
But others contend that Army chiefs from infantry and artillery had deliberately tilted the balance in favour of their own arms. "The armoured corps, in particular, suffered a lot. The vacancies for it fell from 48 in Phase-I to just six in Phase-II," said an officer.
The AFT principal bench held that the 2009 policy, called the 'Command Exit Model' (CEM), was "discriminatory" and violated Article 14 of the Constitution, which ensures equality before the law. The Army has been directed to consider afresh the case of all those officers who were denied promotion due to the CEM policy, with all arms and services being allocated vacancies on "pro rata basis" as was the norm earlier.
The Army had already postponed a promotion board in the aftermath of the AFT judgment, even as the Adjutant General and Military Secretary branches are holding hectic discussions on the various options available before the force. "One step could be to file a special leave petition in the Supreme Court against the AFT judgement. But no final decision has been taken yet," said a source.
While promotions up to the lieutenant colonel rank are time-bound if the requisite exams are cleared, the rank of colonel and above are based on the result of selection boards in the steeply-pyramidical promotional structure in the Army.
Confronted with a greying profile of the armed forces, the Kargil Review Committee had recommended that battalion commanding officers or colonels should be around 37 years of age, while brigade commanders should be around 45.
This led to the constitution of the A V Singh Committee (AVSC) in 2001 to restructure the officer cadre with two main objectives: reduction in age of battalion and brigade commanders as well as improvement in career aspirations of military officers.
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Under AVSC Phase-I, the first 750 vacancies for colonels were distributed from 2005 to 2008 among the different arms on "pro rata basis" of their strength. But the remaining 734 vacancies in 2009 were distributed under the new CEM policy, ushered in by the Army HQ without clearance from the government, and led the infantry to corner 441 and artillery 186 of them.
A senior officer said this was done on the basis of "functional requirements" of the force, in which the infantry and artillery were after all the two biggest arms. "Cadre management has to be done based on operational reasons," he said.
But others contend that Army chiefs from infantry and artillery had deliberately tilted the balance in favour of their own arms. "The armoured corps, in particular, suffered a lot. The vacancies for it fell from 48 in Phase-I to just six in Phase-II," said an officer.
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