|
|
|
|
|
Some pain,
some gain Money over
sport |
|
|
Sense of
insecurity
Obama's
second term and India
A
General at Maha Kumbh
MoD’s
injustice over rank pay judgement Free
Armed Forces Tribunal from MoD control
|
|
Money over sport
The
International Olympic Committee's decision to drop wrestling from the Olympics programme defies logic. It's an economic decision rather than a purely sporting one. The decision is rooted in the IOC's desire to be "modern" and relevant to wider audiences. Sponsors and TV producers prefer sports that are telegenic — and apparently, a majority of the people who voted against wrestling think that wrestling is not attractive enough. This sort of thinking is tragic, and perhaps not very unexpected. The ideal of amateurism that underpinned the Modern Olympics, as conceptualised by Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the Modern Games, is long dead. Olympic Games are hosted with an eye on the economic benefits they bring to the host country — in terms of cola drinks sold, boost to tourism and a myriad other ways. Sadly, the IOC, in which corruption has been proven to be a deep-seated problem, has chosen money over sport. Sadly, economics has led to the dropping of one of the original sports from the Olympics. And, judging from the uproar around the world, the IOC has widely miscalculated. Wrestling is widely popular around the world. In every culture, in every corner of the world, wrestling is the original sport — the test of strength and agility is part of the folklore of every civilisation. And its popularity isn't just part of folklore. It is not merely the US, Russia and the former Soviet countries, or Iran and other parts of Asia in which wrestling is popular — in the London Olympics as many as 29 countries won medals, attesting to its worldwide appeal. It is quite absurd that synchronised swimming and dressage are considered sports worthy to be part of the world's greatest sporting festival but wrestling is not. FILA, wrestling's world governing body, has said that it is "greatly astonished" by the decision and would take all necessary measures to try to reverse the decision. The Olympics motto in Latin is Citius, Altius, Fortius — Faster, Higher, Stronger. Traditionally, weightlifers are considered the strongest men and women at the Olympics, though wrestlers too have a claim to the title. By removing wrestling from the Olympics, the IOC has knocked 'Fortious' out of its motto. It might as well replace it with 'Pecunia', Latin for 'money'.
|
|
|
Sense of insecurity
Haryana
has 3,144 police personnel deployed to protect VIPs — politicians, government officials, judges, et al. While this may seem much less than the neighbouring Punjab's, which has well above 5,000, the figure is definitely more than what the state can afford. The cost is in terms of both the salary and availability of personnel for general policing. All governments claim the deployment is as per the threat perception revised periodically. But the assessment process itself needs revisiting. A lot of the security is provided by the thumb rule, such as a certain number is fixed for all ministers, MLAs, judicial officers, etc. What may be done is a specific assessment for each one of them. Not all could be facing a similar threat, if at all. After the maximum possible cutback, there may still be a certain number of personnel required to protect the VIPs. This cannot be grudged, as these people need to be protected so they can perform their public duties. But why this rankles with the general public is the little policing power left to protect them. As it is, India has only one policeman per 761 people (the US has about three times that), while its own norms require one per 568. VIP security cuts into even this small number, leaving the common man to fend for himself. The answer to this is, of course, hiring a far greater number of policemen. But that brings up the question of states' finances, which takes us back to the argument for a serious relook at who and how we protect. Among those protected, there are two broad categories — VIPs and VVIPs. While a host of the VIPs can simply be denied the security without realistically exposing them to any threat, most VVIPs could easily shed part of their extremely heavy security. People like chief ministers and top judges have dozens or even hundreds of personnel deployed with them. They would be doing a great national service — besides earning a few brownie points — were they to voluntarily take the cut. Would the gentlemen among them raise their hand?
|
|
|
A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous. — Ingrid Bergman
|
Obama's second term and India THERE is striking unanimity among analysts and commentators in both this country and the United States that President Barack Obama's second term would herald fresh and by no means minor difficulties in Indo-US relations. Senator John Kerry's appointment as Secretary of State, in succession to India-friendly Hillary Clinton, has already provided quite a few indications of the shape of things to come, and these cannot be to India's liking. For instance, the endgame in Afghanistan is almost certain to be a major problem between the most powerful and the largest democracies. Because of its determination to exit the rugged country where it has fought its longest and unfinished war, America finds it necessary to pander to Pakistan even though relations between these once "most allied allies" have sunk to a very low point, of late. This has already led to a downgrading, in America's scheme of things, of India's role in the security of Afghanistan, a traditionally friendly country where its stakes are very high. Pakistan, of course, wants this country excluded from Afghanistan altogether. Moreover, along with Britain, Pakistan is promoting a settlement between the Taliban and the Karzai government but basically on its terms. The Taliban's inclusion in the post-US Afghan government would be bad news for the region, and would add to the strains between New Delhi and Washington, as differences over Iran are doing already. Next to Af-Pak, China will be another source of discomfort. Not long ago, Mr. Obama had declared the shift of his country's "pivot" from India's west to East Asia (Mrs. Clinton spoke of the region as "Indo-Pacific") and promised to "rebalance" American military presence in the area. The wide world had seen this as a measure to contain China's rise and growing assertiveness, indeed aggressiveness. No one believed this more strongly than the Chinese. Some time later the outgoing US defence secretary, Leon Panetta, declared in Delhi that India was the "lynchpin" of the new American "pivot" in Asia-Pacific. This was clearly an exaggeration but there was a point to it. As the largest country of Asia after China and the fourth biggest economy in the world, India has a major role to play in building up a just and transparent security architecture and maintaining stability in Asia. Moreover, several of American and Indian interests do converge, even if these diverge in certain other areas. Other neighbours of China, especially Japan, South Korea and Australia, were even more supportive of the American "pivot". Now, however, all this looks like a thing of the past. For during Congressional hearings for his confirmation and afterwards, Mr. Kerry has "softened" America's approach to China. Some have called it "rebalancing of the earlier rebalancing (Mr.) Obama had proclaimed". And since actions speak louder than words, the US President sent a senior aide to Tokyo to urge restraint when the Japan-China dispute over the island the Japanese call Senkaku and the Chinese Diaoyu escalated to a point where the danger of war loomed. America's sudden resolve to avoid not only an armed conflict with China but also any provocation to it is so obvious that some observers in Washington perceive a "return to G2 era" as was briefly the case from the time of Mr. Obama's official visit to Beijing in November 2009. At that time America was so enamoured of China that Mr. Obama "invited" it to help maintain peace and stability in South Asia and even to promote a "dialogue between India and Pakistan". This country's reaction to it was so strong that a year later, on his official visit to Delhi, the US President described the Indo-American ties as the "defining relationship of the twenty-first century". He then announced, for the first time, his country's full support to India's quest for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Not only does this remain a very distant dream but also the American side has made no bones about its view that our performance during the last two years as a non-permanent member of the Security Council has been "obstructive" and therefore unhelpful. The consequence of this should be evident, especially now that the issue of the much-needed reform of the UN system seems to interest no one. Incidentally, it needs to be added that China has never supported India's permanent membership of the Security Council although many in this country have misinterpreted Beijing's ambiguous statements as support to the Indian cause! A no less significant pointer to American policy in the coming four years was that, on taking over as America's top diplomat, Mr. Kerry first telephoned leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority and then spoke to foreign ministers of Japan, Korea and Turkey. India and Pakistan were low on his list. Since then Mr. Obama has announced that the first country he would visit during his second term is Israel that it hadn't visited in the first term. This underscores America's realisation that without a solution of the Palestine issue, there can be no lasting peace and stability in an increasingly inflammable and deeply troubled region. America's immediate concern in West Asia is focussed, of course, on Syria and Iran but it understands the urgency of solving the basic Arab-Israeli problem over which Israel generally, and Mr. Netanyahu particularly, have been intransigent despite the existence of a the two-state formula that has practically withered on the vine. It looks most likely that Mr. Netanyahu will be back as Prime Minister by the time Mr. Obama comes on March 21. Relations between these two have seldom been cordial. But this time around Mr. Netanyahu would be under some pressure from his left-wing coalition partners that favour a settlement with the Palestinians. Evidently, Mr. Obama seas a window of opportunity in this but he cannot be unaware of the massive roadblocks to the progress towards peace. In any case, Syria remains unresolved, and there is a deep division within the Obama administration arming even the most carefully selected group of Syrian rebels that are a dangerous amalgam of Islamists, al-Qaida terrorists, downright criminals and what not. To revert to India-America relations both countries are mired in their great and growing domestic woes, aggravated by a political gridlock in both. Even so, they should find time to discuss whatever problem each thinks it has with the
other.
|
|||||||
A General at Maha Kumbh Though
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was not inclined to state patronage to any religious observances, some of his chief ministers held strong views to the contrary. So when it was time for the first Maha Kumbh of Independent India in the late 1950s, Dr Sampurananand, the Chief Minister of UP pleaded with and persuaded the PM to entrust the Indian Army with the cleaning up of the river bed at the Sangam-confluence and especially for the Shahi Snaan, during the grand finale. And thus the dice was cast and the custom prevails to this day, I believe. In those days, the headquarters of the Eastern Army Command was located at Lucknow and Lieut General Sant Singh was the GOC-in-C. The General belonged to the Sikh Regiment and in keeping with the Army traditions, the security, ceremonial and administrative needs of the GOC-in-C were entrusted to one of the Sikh Battalions. As a bulk of the Eastern Army was operationally deployed in countering insurgency in Nagaland, so the Maha Kumbh task was assigned to two companies of the Sikh Battalion at Lucknow. Not leaving anything to chance, the Commanding Officer with the Subedar Major moved to Allahabad and camped under tents, close to their work site. The task was not limited to the mere cleaning of the site but also putting in place a fail-safe, safety and rescue regime. And all of this in about ten days flat. As always, the jawans took up the challenge with gusto, stripping down to their drawers and wading chest-deep in icy-cold waters, in mid-winter. Citizens of Allahabad were most appreciative of the jawans dedication to the job-in-hand and they spontaneously organised hot tea and snacks at the work site every mid-morning as also in the afternoons. Shortly, the Chief Minister also shifted to Allahabad to personally oversee the preparations. And one fine morning, the Chief Minister spoke to the Army Commander and requested him to meet him at Allahabad. After exchanging pleasantries, the CM's tenor suddenly turned grave and he said, “General Sahib, hamean khubar milee hay ka jawan sharaab peeta hayn aur bakra ka mass bhi khate hayn. Is pavittar asthan par hum asie bay-adaabi bardasht naheen kar saktay”. Naturally, the General was taken aback but gaining his composure, he sent for the Subedar Major. And that veteran of WW II and of the 1947-48 war in J&K stood his ground and replied, “Regimental Medical Officer ka hukam hay Sahib kay jo Jawan ek ghantay se ziyada daryaa kay paani maen rehta hay, oos ko har roz, 6 ounce rum pilayi jayegi. Aur bakra ka maas, har haftay maen do bar jawano kay ration me authorised hay aur zaroor peeta aur khatay hain, Sahib.” General Sant Singh suggested to the Chief Minister that it will neither be appropriate to countermand medical advice nor deny jawans legitimate ration. And thus ended once of a kind confabulation between a General and an Hon'ble Chief
Minister.
|
|||||||
MoD’s injustice over rank pay judgement The Ministry of Defence had itself accepted through affidavits and submissions before the SC that implementation of the judgement in rank and pay would involve re-fixation of not only the Fourth Pay Commission, but would affect successive pay commissions. Once
again the Ministry of Defence has betrayed its soldiers. The Supreme Court judgement in the rank pay case has not been implemented in letter and spirit, making it largely redundant. The MoD has not only denied pay scale upgradation for officers but also, as a result, left out re-fixation of pensions of those who retired before January 1986 as well as consequential benefits to all officers arising out of the implementation of the fifth and sixth pay commissions. This is another case of bureaucratic manipulation against soldiers. The ministry's letter of December 27, 2012 is applicable to only about 20,000 officers who were holding the rank of Captain to Brigadier on January 1, 1986, whereas it should have covered all officers who are in receipt of pay or pension or family pension which is about 80,000. The Apex Court clearly ruled that the rank pay granted by the Fourth Pay Commission (FPC) was wrongly deducted from basic pay and ordered re-fixation of pay "with effect from" and not "as on" January 1, 1986, as mentioned in the letter. The letter states that the judgement has no bearing on fifth and sixth pay commissions, and that there shall be no change in instructions issued thereof except those necessitated due to re-fixation of pay on January 1, 1986. The deduction of rank pay had resulted in depressed scales and status, and once corrected should have resulted in automatic upgradation of FPC scales as well as successive ones, as was fully argued before the court and contained in the various affidavits filed by both the petitioners and the UOI. The MoD should be questioned as to how the rank of Captain, which was shown before the Supreme Court as equal to Senior Time Scale (STS) till the Third Pay Commission (TPC), was suddenly degraded in the FPC, making STS equal to Major. There was no order by the FPC or any other authority to degrade the rank and club it with Junior Time Scale (JTS). This shows systematic degradation by the MoD without knowledge of the political executive. Till TPC, Second Lieutenant and Lieutenant were equated with JTS and Captain with STS. After the rank pay fiasco in the FPC, three ranks, that is Second Lieutenant, Lieutenant and Captain were shown clubbed with a single civilian rank of JTS. How could it be allowed that the first military rank of Second Lieutenant along with two promotional ranks of Lieutenant and Captain were all clubbed with the first civilian rank? All happened because of the strange manipulations in the rank pay saga which have now been corrected by the SC. Similarly a Major drew pay equal to the Selection Grade/Non-Functional Selection Grade of the civil services, but today an SG/NFSG officer enjoys a status and draws a pay equal to a Colonel. Such manipulations and degradation of status and sheen of the military rank continue where civilian staff put up noting sheets and get approvals without taking into confidence the military staff. Stake-holders be consulted before taking decisions that affect them, but it has always been a one-sided affair. The defence minister should know that elements inimical to the soldier would ensure that he does not get to know the correct situation and there is a huge gap between what is projected to him and what is the reality. The MoD had itself accepted through affidavits and submissions before the SC that implementation of the judgement would involve re-fixation of not only the FPC, but would affect successive pay commissions. Further, it would alter payment of all consequential and resultant benefits of officers and their families wherever applicable. In an affidavit seeking extension of time for implementation of the judgement, the MoD had stated that the judgement related to three successive pay commissions and also affected the benefits of those who retired prior to 1986. Then how can the MoD issue instructions contrary to the above submission? The staff concerned has very carefully chosen to stick on to certain words without looking at the spirit of the entire order and court proceedings. The judgement, which was to have a cascading effect on the fixation of pay scales from January 1986 till date, has fraudulently been made applicable only to those persons who were in receipt of rank pay in January 1986. The letter can easily be termed as "rarest of rare fraud, perjury and Injustice to the defence forces". How does the government expect demoralised and demotivated officers to lead from the front and sacrifice their lives when it is denying them their due respect, status, inter se equation with other services and emoluments? Certainly the government has clearly not been fair to defence personnel. The letter of December 27, 2012 should be withdrawn and a fresh letter incorporating all aspects of the SC judgement correctly needs to be issued immediately.
|
|
Free Armed Forces Tribunal from MoD control The
concept of Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) needs redemption, and urgently so, by all stakeholders. In 2009, just about three and a half years ago, the AFT became functional with much fanfare as an “independent” forum to adjudicate matters related to defence personnel. It's 2013, but despite best efforts of the adjudicating members and those representing litigants, AFT's justice delivery system leaves much to be desired. Litigants hence cannot be blamed for lamenting at times that they were better-off having their cases heard by High Courts, the independence and majesty of which cannot be matched by the system of tribunalisation. The problems are multifarious. Let us run through some of them. No power to enforce its orders The AFT is a tribunal which does not possess powers of civil contempt. Though there is mention of civil contempt in the rules and forms framed under the AFT Act, the substantive provision is missing,which shows that it was chopped from the drafting table somewhere along the way. The reason is not far to seek, even when the Bill for introduction of civil contempt powers was recently introduced and referred to the Standing Committee on Defence, the defence services themselves reportedly opposed the grant of powers of contempt to the Tribunal. In the Act, there is a vague mention of power of execution of orders passed by the AFT but there is no procedure prescribed for such execution. Till date the Tribunal survives on ambiguity. So if a person is not released on bail when ordered by the Tribunal or not reinstated when acquitted or not granted his or her pension when directed, there isn't much that the litigant can do. Since there is no power of enforcement, most orders are not implemented unless litigants re-approach the Tribunal seeking implementation. Most orders in favour of litigants are challenged by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) before the Supreme Court, thereby making it extremely difficult for defence personnel to effectively defend their cases because of the exorbitant cost of litigation involved. Recently the ministry informed Parliament that only 303 judgements remained unimplemented whereas the actual number is estimated to be between 4,000-5,000. Written instructions have been passed not to implement orders unless the petitioner re-approaches the Tribunal with an execution petition. Implementation is refused on the pretext that the AFT orders are not in consonance with government policy! Now if government policy is sacrosanct, then why would any interpretation be required from a Tribunal? Courts are required to interpret, read-down, harmonize, and if required, strike down policies. Control of the Ministry of Defence The AFT currently functions under the MoD which controls its infrastructure, appointments, rule-making and much of everything else. Though the independence of its Members can hardly be doubted, for a litigant it seems more of an extension of the state -- a government instrumentality rather than an independent judicial forum. A fright, since the cases were hitherto being heard by the judiciary whose hallmark is independence, given the separation of powers under our democratic system. The AFT is a part of, and dependent upon the MoD -- that very ministry against which it is to pass all orders. Even when a proactive rule is to be introduced or changed, the matter is referred to the defence services and departmental bureaucracy, which of course tends to be more inclined towards looking after its own interests and keeping the Tribunal toothless. For example, the matter whether or not civil contempt powers were to be granted or not was referred to the three services but the question arises as to why would the defence services affirm grant of teeth to the AFT when those teeth are to ultimately bite them on disobedience of orders? Despite orders of the Supreme Court in L. Chandrakumar Vs Union of India (1997) and Union of India Vs R. Gandhi (2010) and of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Navdeep Singh Vs Union of India (2012) to the effect that tribunals should be placed under the Ministry of Law and Justice, most of the tribunals continue functioning under their sponsoring or parent ministries, notwithstanding the laudable efforts of the law ministry to implement SC decisions which are being resisted by most ministries. The reason behind this resistance is ostensibly the fact that ministries feel that they would “lose hold” over tribunals. An otiose argument since the executive anyway is not supposed to maintain hold over judicial bodies. The MoD has not even provided basics such as security to the institution or official accommodation to members. Rules are also arbitrarily notified. For example, the MoD recently made it compulsory for petitioners to file affidavits with their petitions. Court fee is only accepted through postal orders or bank drafts. Now imagine personnel posted in field and isolated areas looking for notaries to get affidavits attested or looking for post offices and banks to remit court fee! While the world moves away from red-tapism, the same is adopted with impunity by the officialdom. Business in tribunals, as also held by Courts, should be user-friendly, informal and procedure-free and that is the reason why even the Code of Civil Procedure is not applied to most tribunals, but the MoD does not seem to think so. Fractured provisions The drafting of the AFT Act has been messy. Besides the absence of any power of enforcement, appeal has been instituted directly to the Supreme Court. This despite the fact that the parliamentary committee discussing provisions of appeal had remarked that though an appeal was being provided to SC for questions of general public importance, similar provisions for the Central Administrative Tribunal had been interpreted by the SC earlier wherein it was held that jurisdiction of High Courts could not be ousted and hence AFT orders would also have to be challenged as per Constitutional provisions. Notwithstanding the SC decision, the remarks of the committee and orders of High Courts, the MoD continues to harp that orders of AFT can only be challenged before the SC. Elsewhere in the Act, there are parts which require amendment but rather than legislatively amending those provisions, the MoD has issued executive gazette notifications for amendment. Now can a Parliamentary Act be amended by an executive order? Adversarial role of Ministry of Defence The role played by the defence ministry is adversarial towards litigants, where petitioners are viewed as “enemies of the system.” Even settled and covered matters are not conceded, government counsel not briefed fairly and all pleas are opposed as if it is state policy to increase litigation and live off the miseries of poor personnel. Unwanted, forced and imposed multiple litigation up to the SC is the order of the day and shockingly most appeals filed by the MoD are against disabled soldiers. The vacancy notification for administrative members is also not published in any newspaper. Administrative members of the first batch were selected mostly on basis of military seniority. Care however must be taken to select administrative members on merits with a balanced, sensitive and flexible approach since, besides other issues, they are also to deal with cases of disabled soldiers and military widows. In fact even a short judicial capsule is desirable to enable the selectees unlearn military rigidity and to ensure that they transform themselves into adjudicators without institutional bias rather than representatives of the establishment. Litigants expect the AFT to be free, progressive and proactive, not conservative and inhibited. Till the time issues concerning the AFT in particular and military justice in general are suitably addressed, preferably by a body under the law ministry totally independent of the influence of the MoD, concepts of justice and equality so cherished in our democracy and which form the gruondnorm of the Preamble of our Constitution, would merely remain high sounding words with little practical usage for military litigants. Navdeep Singh is an author of
‘Soldiers, Know Your Rights’.
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
