A former Deputy Chief of Army Staff approached the apex court today to seek a stay on the survey being held by the Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee.Citing an Indian Express write-up of February 18, petitioner Lt General (retd) R S Kadyan claimed that the Centre’s move was fraught with disastrous consequences and would only help to ‘‘sow the seed of communalism in the defence forces’’. He urged that the exercise be stopped immediately.‘‘If such a list is prepared, it will create very illogical and unnecessary data which might create, and/or will be capable of creating, in the mind of the minority communities in India a feeling of their being less in number in the defence forces, as such giving them cause for some sort of fear of the majority community,’’ Lt Gen Kadyan said. The petitioner expressed fear that defence personnel from other communities would misconstrue the move as being intended to grant reservations and special privileges to the members of a particular community.Muslims were not the only minorities; Christians and Parsis are there too, Lt Gen Kadyan said. “It will be highly improper to total up numbers of any particular community in the armed forces as religion was not the basis for selection in these services,” he added.The headcount would amount to discrimination and their treatment as a separate class, which, instead of unifying members of diverse religions in the defence forces, would be a starting point for divisiveness and discrimination,’’ he added.
