Supreme Court pulls up General VK Singh for contemptuous remarks over age-row

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up former Army chief VK Singh for his remarks over the age row and said that it was open to criticism, but would not have anyone attributing any motives or extraneous considerations to it.

“While we welcome criticism, we won’t have anyone attributing any motives or extraneous considerations. That’s impermissible,” Justice RM Lodha and HL Gokhale said.

The top court bench had suo motu initiated contempt action against the former Army chief for stating that while the court could accept the matriculation certificate of a rapist (in the Nirbhaya case) to accept his claims of being a juvenile, but it (court) refrained from taking a call on his matric certificate as it was under “pressure”.

The interview given to ANI was reported in the Indian Express Sunday edition. Singh was alluding to the fact that the court had not accepted his claim that he was born in 1950 and not in 1951 as stated in his matric certificate.

Accepting his claims, 1951 would have given him another year at the helm as Army chief. Singh had later withdrawn his petition when the court had pointed out that he had virtually accepted 1950 as his birth year when he had accepted a promotion.

The top court had then told him that he should honour the gentleman’s agreement and move on.