Age row vitiated Army environment: J J Singh

The officer has described a PIL filed by “well wishers” of Gen V K Singh that raised a communal angle to the age row,contending that Gen J J Singh had orchestrated the controversy so that present Chief Gen Bikram Singh takes over,as “motivated and utterly malicious”.

“Comments made against me recently that this issue was raked up by me in 2006 with a ‘succession plan’ and parochial agenda in mind are preposterous,malicious and incorrect to say the least,” he has written.

Gen J J Singh has gone on to say that recent comments and insinuations can cause serious damage to the armed forces. “These (comments) are loaded with dangerous portents that can play havoc with the secular and apolitical fabric of the great institution that we have given the best part our lives to,and also cause incalculable harm to the nation as well,” he has written.

The Governor has devoted only three pages in his book — which describes his journey from being the grandson of an ordinary soldier in the British Army to leading the Indian Army — to the controversy,contending that the age row started with ‘threshold’ documents submitted by Gen V K Singh as a cadet in the mid-1960s.

Gen J J Singh has written that when the matter came to light in 2006 — when he was the Army Chief — he had no role to play and it was handled by the then Military Secretary. He has written that “rationally speaking”,Gen V K Singh should have filed a complaint with the Army HQ or the Defence Ministry at that time but did not do so “for reasons best known to him”. Gen J J Singh has said that he has been “angered” by insinuations made against him by people close to Gen V K Singh. “Such insinuations at this stage by some of the Army Chief’s advisers or ‘well wishers’ have deeply appalled and angered me. Furthermore,in a recent interview with a magazine,he himself has implied motives regarding the decision of the Army HQ in his age issue,” he has written,adding that many in the armed forces believe that the ‘personal matter’ should have been handled with the ‘utmost discretion’ without the ‘unsavoury media hype’.