More top brass from Signals, Engg corps

Vijay Mohan
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, January 8

In a significant judgment that has implications for the entire officer cadre of the Army, the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) has directed the Ministry of Defence to allocate a proportionate number of additional vacancies in the Army’s higher echelons to officers from the combat support arms.

Consequently, these arms would have more officers in the rank of Brigadier and Major General, and possibly Lieutenant General, too.

According to legal experts, it could also mean a rejig in the number of vacancies allotted to other arms.

“The respondents are directed to allot a proportionate number of additional vacancies in the ranks of Brigadier and Major General, out of the 222 Brigadier and 75 Major General vacancies allotted by the government in tune with the AV Singh Committee recommendations, to Engineers, Signals and Air Defence corps keeping in view the allocation of 141 vacancies in the rank of Colonel to these arms by the Supreme Court on February 15, 2016,” an AFT Bench comprising Justice Virender Singh and Lt Gen Philip Campose ruled, while disposing of a bunch of petitions today.

Though it has implications for vacancies in the rank of Lt General, it was not challenged in the petitions, so the Bench did deliberate upon it.

Various elements of the Army are categorised as “combat arms” — including Infantry, Armoured Corps and Artillery — which directly engage the enemy, and combat support arms”, like Engineers, Signals and Army Air Defence that support frontline battlefield operations. 

The “services” like Army Ordnance Corps, Electronics and Mechanical Engineers, Army Medical Corps and Judge Advocate General are responsible for rear echelon logistic and administrative matters. Consequent to the implementation of the AV Singh Committee on cadre restructure, the Centre, in 2009, released additional vacancies in the rank of Colonel, Brigadier, Major General and Lieutenant General. 

Most of these vacancies were bagged by Infantry and Artillery. Some officers from the combat support arms had challenged the order on grounds of discrimination, contending that additional vacancies of Colonel should be allotted to all arms proportionately and correspondingly applied to higher ranks.