M A I N   N E W S

Pending cases in HCs to go to Army tribunal
Maneesh Chhibber and Vijay Mohan
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 5
The much-awaited appellate tribunal for armed forces, which will become a reality once Parliament passes the Bill tabled in this connection and the President gives his assent, will also deal with all pending cases involving disputes between serving and retired personnel of the three wings of the Indian armed forces.

According to Major General Nilendra Kumar, Judge Advocate-General, all cases filed by serving and retired personnel, that are pending in the various High Courts of the country will be shifted to the tribunal for adjudication.

Acknowledging that the justice delivery system of the armed forces is not yielding the desired results, Major-General Kumar said that the tribunal will also have the power to deal with cases filed by ex-servicemen and families of deceased personnel.

The Bill is currently pending in the Rajya Sabha.

Hundreds of cases filed by serving and retired officers and jawans against alleged injustice done by the top brass of the three wings and the Defence Ministry are pending adjudication in various High Courts. These include high-profile cases such as the ones filed by Brig Surinder Singh (Kargil conflict) and Major Surinder Singh (fake kills in Siachen).

Sources say that the need for setting up the tribunal was felt after growing criticism of the internal grievance redressing system of the armed forces and growing incidents of serving officers approaching the High Courts with their grievances.

Interestingly, the number of cases being filed by personnel of the armed forces, particularly the Army, has been mounting in spite of the advice of the Chief of Army Staff General J.J. Singh to Armymen not to run to courts every time they had a grievance against the set-up.

Sometime back, the Supreme Court of India had observed that the Army Act was archaic and that the government had failed to bring about the necessary changes in it in light of changed times.

The proposed tribunal, to be chaired by a retired Supreme Court Judge or a former Chief Justice of a High Court, will have its Principal Bench at New Delhi, with benches at five other places.

The Principal Bench will have eight members — four from the judiciary and four retired servicemen. The five proposed benches will be based at Jammu, Lucknow, Chennai, Guwahati and Mumbai or Pune.

The tribunals will have appellate as well as original jurisdiction.