3 min readChandigarhJun 8, 2023 10:35 AM IST
First published on: Jun 7, 2023 at 07:12 PM IST
A Lieutenant Colonel who was posted at the Indian Military Academy (IMA), Dehradun, has been court-martialled by the Army for having an affair with a civilian woman clerk at the academy and donating sperms for her in-vitro fertility treatment.
The General Court Martial of the officer concluded on June 7 at the Bengal Engineer Group and Centre, Roorkee, where he pleaded guilty to all charges against him. The officer has been awarded severe reprimand by the court martial along with a sentence of forfeiture of three years service for the purpose of substantive rank of Lt Col, forfeiture of three years seniority of rank and forfeiture of three years service for increased pay.
The Lt Colonel belongs to the Army Education Corps and was posted in the Academic Branch of IMA Dehradun when he developed a relationship with the woman clerk working in IMA who was married at the time to a Havildar of the Corps of Engineers. The Lt Colonel too was married and has two children.
During the course of investigation, it was revealed that the officer had accompanied the woman on multiple occasions for her in-vitro fertility treatment for pregnancy and had also donated sperms for the same. It was when the Lt Colonel stopped all contact with the woman after being posted out of IMA Dehradun that she filed a police complaint and thereafter a complaint with the Army authorities.
The accused officer was defended by two defence counsel, Shailendra Kumar Singh and Keshav Sharma of Allahabad High Court. Prosecution was conducted by Colonel Virender Singh (retd), a former Judge Advocate General’s branch Officer and Advocate, Delhi High Court.
The Lt Colonel initially pleaded ‘not guilty’ to all the three charges levelled against him under Sections 45 and 63 of the Army Act for behaving in unbecoming manner as an officer and for acts prejudicial to good orders and military discipline. One charge pertained to having an amorous relationship with the woman clerk knowing that she was married to an Army Havildar, another charge related to donating his sperms for the assisted reproductive technology procedure of the woman and a third charge pertained to improperly making a dependent card for the woman showing her as his wife.
After the prosecution made the opening address giving details of the case against the accused on the three charges, including the electronic evidence in the form of Whatsapp chats and phone recordings between the accused and the woman, the accused withdrew his plea of ‘not guilty’ and pleaded ‘guilty to all the charges’.
The trial commenced on April 11, 2023.
The Lt Colonel belongs to the Army Education Corps and was posted in the Academic Branch of IMA Dehradun 
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