The Government will treat Navy Chief Admiral DK Joshi’s resignation as voluntary retirement to ensure that he gets all benefits including full pension. Joshi resigned on February 26 in the wake of mishap on board submarine INS Sindhuratna. He had 15 months of service left before his scheduled retirement next year.
President Pranab Mukherjee, who is the supreme commander of Armed forces, approved the Defence Ministry proposal to treat Joshi’s resignation as voluntary retirement or else the Navy chief would have not got certain monetary benefits and usage of his rank, officials said on Tuesday.
The Defence Ministry sought the President’s approval to ensure that the process of treating resignation as voluntary retirement from the day Joshi put in his papers is legally tenable and foolproof, they said.
All Services officers are entitled to pension and other benefits after they complete 20 years of mandatory service. Joshi had served for more than 35 years and the Government in order to avoid any glitches in giving him full pension as he had not completed his tenure as Chief decided to treat his resignation as voluntary retirement, officials said.
Joshi had resigned hours after INS Sindhuratna met with an accident killing two officers. He owned moral responsibility for the spate of 12 accidents involving warships and submarines in the last seven months. In one of the most serious accidents, an explosion on board INS Sindhurakshak docked in Mumbai in August last year killed 18 personnel.
Meanwhile, the Government is yet to appoint the new Navy Chief and officials said the selection process is on. Western Command Chief Vice Admiral Shekhar Sinha, Southern Command chief Anil Chopra and the acting Navy chief Vice Admiral Robin Dhowan are in the race for the top job. Appointments Committee of Cabinet headed by the Prime Minister will take the final call for selecting the new Chief.