INDIA’S ARMY chief is suing the Indian government because he wants his date of birth to be altered to give him an additional year in office.
General V K Singh filed his petition in India’s supreme court earlier this week, asking it to acknowledge May 10th, 1951, as his birth date instead of May 10th, 1950, the date according to army records, which he maintains has been recorded incorrectly on some ministry of defence documents.
If the court concurs with the ministry that Gen Singh’s date of birth is indeed May 10th, 1950, he will have to retire on May 31st, when he turns 62.
But if this highly decorated veteran of the 1971 war with Pakistan prevails, he will remain in service until May 2013, an occurrence that would gravely upset the army’s hierarchy.
Claiming to fight for “honour and not tenure”, Gen Singh has asked the court to accept May 10th, 1951, as recorded in his school leaving and birth certificates as his official birthday.
In India school graduation certificates are considered definite proof of age, but over the past three months the ministry has three times rejected Gen Singh’s pleas to effect the change, maintaining the earlier birth date formed the basis of all his promotions, including his appointment as army chief in March 2010.
In his petition, Gen Singh claims to have been fighting for years to reconcile the different dates to vindicate his reputation but was continually thwarted, eventually leaving him no other than a legal recourse.
Expressing displeasure over Gen Singh’s move, junior defence minister MM Pallam Raju said it was not a matter for public debate.
“It is an unhealthy precedent that does not augur well either for the defence ministry or the armed forces,” he warned.