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The Supreme Court Thursday agreed to hear in July a plea seeking to stall the appointment of Lt General Dalbir Singh Suhag as next Army chief. The petition, filed by Lt General Ravi Dastane, was earlier fixed to be heard in September.
A vacation bench led by Justice Vikramjit Sen agreed to advance the hearing after Dastane’s counsel pleaded for urgency in view of the facts that Dastane was retiring on August 31 while Suhag’s appointment as Army chief takes effect from August 1.
The counsel said Suhag’s selection as Army commander was already challenged in the main petition and if this selection is set aside, Suhag’s appointment as next Army chief would also be struck down.
The bench then fixed the matter in the second week of July to hear the plea to stay Suhag’s appointment as the Chief of Army Staff (COAS). The UPA II government had approved Suhag as the chief-designate — incumbent General Bikram Singh retires on July 31. The convention has been to name a successor two months in advance.
As first reported by The Indian Express, the case had witnessed a twist after the government defended Army vice chief Suhag’s promotion as Army commander and described the disciplinary ban on him by then Army chief and now Minister of State Gen (retd) V K Singh as “illegal”, “extraneous” and “premeditated”.
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