Navy top brass at loggerheads over tenure rule

To prevent the greying of Navy, its Commanders-in-Chief are urging their boss, Admiral Madhavendra Singh, to restore the tenure rule for Rea...

To prevent the greying of Navy, its Commanders-in-Chief are urging their boss, Admiral Madhavendra Singh, to restore the tenure rule for Rear Admirals and above so that there are more vacancies at the top. The Naval Commanders and some Rear Admirals raised the issue with Admiral Singh during the senior officers’ meet this April as they do not want the promotional avenues to be blocked.

The tenure rule was unique to the Indian Navy. Before the retirement age was increased to 60 years, the rule stipulated that Rear Admirals served a tenure of four years or 54 years of age (whichever was later) but not beyond 56 years in case of technical staff. The Vice-Admirals or three-star officers continued to the age of 58 years. And for those who became Commanders-in-Chief, Navy had a tenure of four years after which the officer was either promoted or retired, age notwithstanding.

This rule was done away with by Navy Chief Admiral Sushil Kumar in 1999 when he took over. Admiral Madhavendra Singh is one of the beneficiaries of the rule being dropped as he became a Commander-in-Chief in 1996 and would have retired in 2000.

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Vice Admiral Vinod Pasricha, who retired as Western Naval Commander last year, took up the restoration of the tenure rule with Admiral Singh while in service. Admiral Pasricha has now sent letters to all three-star admirals in the Navy to get the rule revived else s it would have ‘‘disastrous results’’.

In a letter (dated August 6, 2003), Vice-Admiral (Retd) Pasricha says: ‘‘As predicted by me, this has very serious implications for the Indian Navy, and in October 2001, I had even volunteered to quit after four years as C-in-C, so that this rule could be revived. In fact, the impact is already being felt very rudely by the technical branches where two former Admiral Superintendent Dockyards, both of whom did exceedingly well in their appointments, have to retire as Rear Admirals.’’ Attached to this is a May 3, 2003 letter from Pasricha to the Navy Chief.

The May letter says: ‘‘I now understand that immediately on assuming the charge of CNS, Admiral Sushil Kumar meet with Army and Air Force Chiefs, and based on their recommendations unilaterally and in under a week decided that the tenure rule must go. This he did so without consulting his Cs-in-C, despite the fact that we were in Delhi. Nor did he consult the Chief of Personnel, who had submitted a totally contrary view to the Defence Ministry.’’ However, Admiral Singh did not reply to Pasricha’s letter.

But to be fair to Admiral Singh, he did take up the restoration of the rule with the Defence Ministry in 2002. However, the ministry told him that personnel rules have to be transparent and cannot be changed within three years. Faced with a tough stand, the Naval Chief withdrew the file.

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Ministry officials confirm there is rumbling in the Navy over the tenure rule but say that Naval Headquarters has not come up with a new proposal.

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