There will be no roadblock to Vice Admiral Karambir Singh’s taking of charge as the Navy chief on Friday after incumbent Admiral Sunil Lanba retires. The Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) on Wednesday allowed the takeover and deferred hearing on a petition filed by Vice Admiral Bimal Verma challenging Singh’s appointment to the top post superceding him.
The case will now come up for hearing on July 17 as the Government sought more time for placing records relating to Singh’s appointment before the tribunal as sought by Verma.
He approached the AFT to question Singh’s selection as the next Chief even as Verma is the senior most officer. The Government in March announced Singh’s name for the top post thereby ignoring the convention of appointing the senior most officer as the next chief. It was the second time the previous NDA Government gave the seniority criteria a go by as Bipin Rawat was selected as the Army chief in 2016 overlooking senior most officer Lt General Praveen Bakshi.
The AFT posted the matter for hearing on July 17 as the Government sought more time for placing records relating to Singh’s appointment before the tribunal, Verma’s lawyer Ankur Chhibber said here on Wednesday. He said the AFT allowed Singh to take charge as the new Navy chief on May 31 and that his continuation will depend on the final outcome of the case.
On May 22, the tribunal had directed the government to produce before it on May 29 all records and documents relating to selection of the new Navy chief. However, the Government could not produce the records and sought more time.
Earlier this month, the Defence Ministry issued an order rejecting Verma’s petition before it. Following the defence ministry’s order, Verma filed a fresh petition at the AFT challenging Singh’s appointment as well seeking quashing of the order by the ministry rejecting his plea against the selection.
In its order, the Defence Ministry said Verma’s statutory petition dated April 10 against the appointment of Singh to the top post is devoid of merit and has been rejected in exercise of powers under Section 23 of the Navy Act 1957. On April 25, the tribunal directed the Defence Ministry to decide Verma’s petition within three weeks.
Rejecting Verma’s plea, the Defence Ministry said a thorough selection process was conducted under which overall service profile of all the contenders for the top post was examined. It said specific parameters for selection were applied uniformly to all the contenders and, based on the assessment, it was found that Verma, though being the senior most eligible officer, was unsuitable to hold the post of the chief of the Naval Staff.
In his petition to the Defence Ministry, Verma said why he was overlooked for the top post despite being the senior-most in the line of command, terming “wrongful” the Government’s decision to appoint Singh to the post.
Besides Verma, the other contenders for the Navy chief’s post included Vice Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral G Ashok Kumar, Western Naval Command chief Vice Admiral Ajit Kumar and Southern Naval Command chief Vice Admiral Anil Kumar Chawla. Singh at present is the Eastern Command chief while Verma is heading the tri-Service Andaman and Nicobar command.