Finally the age row of General VK Singh, festering for last 36 years, has been resolved by the apex court of the country. In a setback to Army Chief Gen V K Singh, the Supreme Court on Friday upheld the government decision on his age issue and said he cannot resile on his commitment accepting the date of birth as May 10, 1950. Gen Singh has to abide by his commitment and honour his letters of 2008 and 2009 accepting the date of birth as May 10, 1950. Posing tough questions to Gen Singh as to why he did not get the records corrected, the apex court said that the recognition of his date of birth as May 10, 1950 by the Army does not suffer from “prejudice”, “perversity” and was not grossly erroneous.
It said that All the vital documents like UPSC record and the Army list contained his date of birth as May 10, 1950, and not May 10, 1951. "UPSC record is vital and fundamental in the sense that all service records are based on it. How can it not be relied on," the bench asked. The court said that government decision on his age issue will remain and refused to interfere with his service record which maintains his date of birth as May 10, 1950. According to which, he will retire on May 31 this year.
While Striking a rather balanced approach to tide over the crisis, the apex court applauded his 38 years of service to the nation, saying that it was proud of having a meritorious officer like him and wanted to ensure that he continues to work and lead the 13-lakh strong Army; however,the apex court said it was not in favour of entertaining Singh's petition that his date of birth should be treated in official records as May 10,1951 and gave him option of withdrawing it. Following the apex court's observations, Singh had to withdraw his petition.
In a nutshell, on its part, finally, the apex court, through a very “sound legal judgment” related to “recognition” of date of birth for the service matters of Army General, has tried to draw curtain on the 36 years’ old contentious age row. On the face of it, very few people, including even ardent admirers of General Singh, can really complain against the “rationale” behind the judgment of Apex Court. However many people still seem to be less than happy for many issues remaining unresolved and they feel that non-resolution of some of these issues shall raise many more questions for the Governments and courts to answer in future.
While the apex court tried to “recognize” the date of birth issue of General for service matters, it refused to “determine” his actual date of birth.When the counsel of General Singh sought an order that the government's service record pertaining to his date of birth should not be used for any other civilian matters. The bench said "How can we pass such an order? How can we restrain other fora like the Income-Tax Department from relying on General Singh's service record,"
As a consequence of decision of apex court to only “recognize” his date of birth for service matters and not “determine” his actual date of birth based on his matriculation certificate(still recognized by law to be the most authentic document as proof for one’s date of birth), General Singh will be carrying his two official dates of birth.
Definitely, many people would have liked the apex court to resolve the issue of “determination” of his date of birth too rather than leaving it wide open to the interpretations of various civil authorities. Will the non resolution of the issue not create confusion for the individual and other concerned ? In this case, it is good that the issue is wide known and is likely to create lesser confusion. However what might happen to some lesser known individuals, placed in similar situation in future? Imagine their situation, carrying two official dates of birth and trying to explain to various people, civilian authorities, institutions about the reasons of their two official dates of birth.
While the court disliked that once General Singh made commitment to the then Army chief in 2008 and the ministry of defence in 2009 that he would accept 1950 as his year of birth and treat the date controversy as a closed chapter, he cannot resile on his commitment accepting the date of birth as May 10, 1950.
While, the court may be right in applying the “doctrine of estoppel” on General Singh, Shouldn’t the court have taken into consideration General Singh's persistent attempts since 1985 to correct his date of birth? Shouldn’t the court have taken into consideration the “alleged duress” for obtaining his consent by his the then ex-bosses?
In a nutshell, even though seemingly a right order has been passed to resolve the 36 years’ old age row of General Singh, there remains many more related questions yet to be answered.
