Finally, the date of birth controversy of General VK Singh has been dumped as army chief withdrew his petition as Supreme Court held the government ruling on his age. If rumours are to be believed, the next option Gen Singh is mulling is to quit or otherwise he will retire on May 31 this year. The apex court has made it clear that no injustice has been done to Gen Singh, as he had maintained all along.
BACK OFF or face the fire – speaking in a language that is best understood by armed forces, the Supreme Court has upheld the government ruling on Army Chief’s age, not before giving him an option to withdraw his petition. Definitely a setback to VK Singh who made an unprecedented move by approaching the apex court in his date of birth issue, the court said that he has to retire on May 31 this year, according to his service records.
Noting that no prejudice was done to general, the court however reiterated that the government had full faith in him as the army chief of the country. According to The Times of India, Gen Singh withdrew his petition at 2 pm after the lunch break. In a sharp tone, the bench headed by Justice RM Lodha grilled Gen Singh as to why he didn’t get the records corrected and even went on to say that the recognition of his date of birth as May 10, 1950 doesn’t suffer from perversity and was not grossly erroneous.
With this ruling, it seems that the controversy that most people saw a blot on army chief’s stature seems to have been warded off. General seems to be left with only two options – either continue working at the post or quit in protest. While there are rumours, according to Rediff.com that he will prefer to choose the later one but only time will tell what Gen Singh is up to.
The whole controversy, on the face of it seems to have seriously dented the image of Gen Singh as his case was always seen on the lighter side of the fulcrum. While many people believed that injustice was done to him and the apex court was the best and only option available, this decision would surely make them believe that approaching the court was the worst thing Gen Singh ever did.
As some people argue that the General could have solved the controversy during any part of career but choosing to do it at the last moment was seen with suspicion by most people.
