General’s age row: Plea in apex court questions Army list

The Army list,a classified document that is published at irregular intervals and contains details including the date of birth of officers,is believed to be one of the central pillars of the government’s defence against the case filed by the Army Chief in the Supreme Court. Unlike the publicly available civil list for administrative officers,the Army list is not available for scrutiny of officers.

The government is likely to use the argument that according to Army order 663/73,the date of birth mentioned in the Army list would be regarded as correct for the purposes of promotion and retirement of officers. It would argue that the Army lists of 1974-75 and 1994-95 record the date of birth of General Singh as May 10,1950,against his contention that the correct date is a year later.

However,it has come to light that in 2007,more than a year before Gen Singh was appointed Army Commander and was told to sign an undertaking to mention 1950 as his year of birth,the Defence Ministry decided that compilation of the Army list is a futile effort and agreed with all stakeholders to discontinue its publication.

A meeting held in South Block on June 6,2007,chaired by Joint Secretary Binoy Kumar and attended by Army officers from the Military Secretary branch,amongst others,decided that the practice of publishing the list would be discontinued as other systems,like the Paramount card system and the BrassTack system,were serving well to determine seniority.