The Supreme Court today dismissed a PIL against the appointment of Lt Gen. Bikram Singh as the next Army Chief. The government called the PIL a sideshow laced with communal elements and a ploy to rehash the Gen. V K Singh age row. The bench called for the confidential file placed before the Cabinet appointments committee that considered Lt Gen. Bikram Singhs case to see if anything had escaped their eyes and could later cause embarrassment to the government. After going through the file,it said that it found that the committee had done a thorough job. It is not just the two allegations (relating to) Congo and J&K, Justice R M Lodha said. In fact there were several allegations,including that his daughter-in-law is a Pakistani. They were collected from all sources. The committee has applied its mind to each one of them and given reasons on each. Dismissing the PIL,the court said its decision would have no bearing on any pending legal or other petitions. The daylong hearing saw the petitioners,led by Admiral (retired) L N Ramdas and clarifying that they were not just busybodies raise many allegations against the Army Chief-designate. The government objected to each one of them,and the court largely upheld their defence. The bench of Justices Lodha and H L Gokhale which had also brokered peace in the Gen. V K Singh age controversy also stopped the petitioners from raking up the age row again. There is no question of reopening the General V K Singh matter. It has reached finality here, Justice Lodha said. The petitioners accused the Lt General of being the product of a communally-engineered line of succession called Op MOSES,mentioned langar talk,and said former Army chief Gen. J J Singh and the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) had intervened to propel Bikram Singh to the top. They accused Bikram Singh of having failed to control the excesses of his subordinates during a peacekeeping mission in Congo,and talked of his alleged direct involvement in a fake encounter in Jammu and Kashmir. Finally,they said,Gen. V K Singh was a necessary pawn to make sure that Lt Gen. Bikram Singh succeeded him in 2012. Appearing for the Union of India,Attorney General G E Vahanvati said the PIL was trying to bring in a communal element in the Army. These malicious allegations had to be sifted to find some grain of truth in the petition. This Army has gone through a lot in the recent past,does it have to go through more? The SGPC has been brought in. the Sikh element is brought in. Vahanvati submitted. Very unfortunate, Justice Gokhale responded. Solicitor General Rohinton Nariman said the main focus of the petition was communal. The petition is malafide,based on communal elements. It also somehow tries to rehash the age controversy. The rest is all sideshow, Nariman said. Nariman said the selection of Chief has to be from among the seven Army Commanders and the Vice Chief,and all eight are treated on par. There is complete transparency. Entire service record is placed before the Cabinet. Seniority criterion is followed, the SG said. The record of 40 years service is placed on record. Is it disputed here that he is seniormost? You bring in SGPC and langar talk, Vahanvati said. No,no that we will not permit, Justice Lodha said. When Kamini Jaiswal,appearing for the petitioners,talked of a policy being evolved in 2005 by Gen. J J Singh,now the Arunachal Pradesh governor,basically to accommodate this one person Bikram Singh the bench refused to swallow the theory. We find that difficult to accept. There were several persons affected. Statutory complaints were filed by some,but they did not go beyond that when these complaints were dismissed, Justice Lodha said. On the J&K encounter accusation,the court found that even the pending petition filed by the family of the victim,Ahmed Bhat,does not allege that the Lt General was directly involved. It only accuses Bikram Singh of being part of the conspiracy to file an FIR of the encounter. Two Army officers,Colonel J P Janu and Jawan Ganesh Kumar had lost their lives and Lt B S Bajwa got injured. Three civilians were also killed. One of them,Bhat,is alleged to be a terrorist from Pakistan named Rabbani alias Abdul Mateen Chacha. A 70-year-old person was called a foreign terrorist and an FIR lodged to cover up the incident, Jaiswal argued. Justice Gokhale disagreed. A colonel is shot dead. A jawan is killed. And you are saying that it is a fake encounter! One lieutenant is injured,and you call this a fake encounter! Madam Jaiswal,our officers are working in difficult situations, he intervened,asking whether it could be a case of wrong identity. Vahanvati submitted that Bikram Singh himself was shot in the back and was operated upon for bullet wounds. He spent almost 50 days in the hospital recovering, the AG said. The court asked Jaiswal whether she had any documents to support her allegations against Lt Gen. Bikram Singh with reference to the Congo mission of 2008. What? My Lord,a Court of Inquiry is on. The matter is of public record, Jaiswal replied. But mere allegations without documents would mean maligning our armed forces. Can a career of a person be put at stake on allegations? Justice Gokhale asked. The PIL said: The Court of Inquiry on the involvement Sikh troops in sexual escapades with the local women was suppressed and the matter was laid to rest by the then Maj. General Bikram Singh by giving rations,provisions and money to the affected females. A lot of illegitimate children with Indian features have been born to local women through illicit relations with Indian peacekeepers under Maj. General Bikram Singh. This lapse has brought a bad name to the Indian Army. During the post-lunch session,Justice Lodha referred to the Cabinet file and found that Lt Gen. Bikram Singh was not part of the Indian contingent posted in Congo. Instead,he was on secondment with the United Nations. His job was as a civil servant with the UN. The UN staff rules applied to him. The Court of Inquiry at Meerut is going into the conduct of the Indian contingent alone,and he was not part of it. The reference to the inquiry court is simply titled Role and Code of Conduct of the Indian Contingent, Justice Lodha said. To this,advocate Prashant Bhushan,assisting Jaiswal,got up and questioned the very authenticity of the Cabinet file,and said the Cabinet had been misled on a technicality. Then the report is totally misleading. The report given to the committee is malafide and is meant to mislead the committee. This makes it even more serious, Bhushan argued just before the court started dictating its order dismissing the PIL. Allegations addressed by appointment panel: SCOn Cabinet Scrutiny of Lt Gen Bikram Singh .There were several allegations,including that (Lt Gen. Bikram Singhs) daughter-in-law is Pakistani. The committee has applied its mind to each. On alleged Fake Encounter in J&K A colonel is shot dead. A jawan is killed. And you are saying that it is a fake encounter! One lieutenant is injured,and you call this a fake encounter! Lt Gen. Bikram Singh too was wounded and spent 50 days in hospital,the government said. On Gen. JJ Singhs Look-Down Policy We find that difficult to accept. There were several persons affected. Statutory complaints were filed by some,but they did not go beyond that when these complaints were dismissed. On the Communal Allegations In PIL Very unfortunate. No,no that we will not permit. On Chiefs Age Row There is no question of re-opening the General V K Singh matter. It has reached finality here.
