AFT delivers verdict on grounds not contested by Army officer, HC sets it aside

The order, passed by high court on November 5, was uploaded Monday.

In the high court, the counsel for petitioner Maj Gen Jitendra Kumar Shukla had argued that he had only challenged one Annual Confidential Report — for the period from 01.07.2012 to 11.10.2012. However, the AFT order reflected that it had proceeded on the basis that other confidential reports of the petitioner had also been challenged by him, contended his counsel.

The high court found this to be correct and noted that the final arguments in the application was heard by the AFT on December 17, 2021, while the order was pronounced on August 11, 2023. “In terms of the judgment of the Supreme Court in Anil Rai v. State of Bihar (2001), in our view, this itself is a sufficient ground to set aside the impugned order,” the high court said.

Maj Gen Shukla had pleaded in his petition that his one particular ACR in the rank of Brigadier had been downgraded by the reviewing officer, who was also the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief. He had contended in his petition that this was done after he (Shukla) presided over a court of inquiry which gave a clean chit to the commanding officer (CO) of 5271 ASC Battalion while the GOC-in-C “appeared to be convinced that the CO was guilty of financial impropriety”.

An officer of Army Air Defence Corps, Maj Gen Shukla was commanding an Air Defence Brigade in 2012 when he was appointed as presiding officer of a Court of Inquiry convened under orders of GOC-in-C against the CO for certain financial impropriety.

Maj Gen Shukla contended that he was personally briefed by the GOC-in-C, and “from his briefing it appeared that staff concerned had fully convinced the GOC-in-C that CO of 5271 ASC Battalion was guilty”.

After conducting the Court of Inquiry, Maj Gen Shukla returned a finding that CO was not guilty of any act of financial impropriety. His counsel further contended that the findings did not find favour with the Army Commander who thrice returned the Court of Inquiry proceedings.

Thereafter, his confidential report for the said period became due for assessment and his “outstanding” grading was downgraded to “above-average” by the GOC-in-C without assigning any reason.

While the officer was approved for promotion to the rank of Maj Gen despite the underrated assessment in the rank of Brigadier, but in 2018 when he was considered for promotion to the rank of Lt Gen he was not selected because of the said under assessment which he challenged in AFT.