The bench of Justice Virendra Singh (retd) and Lt Gen Sanjiv Chachra (retd) have not found merit in the contention of Colonel Mukul Dev of the Judge Advocate General’s branch that the show cause notice was device to impede his chances of being promoted to the rank of Brigadier.
The Principal Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) has rejected the contention of an Army officer that he was being harassed by Army HQs by being given a show cause notice for having issued a legal notice to the Defence Secretary in July 2017 over the withdrawal of free ration given to officers.
The bench of Justice Virendra Singh (retd) and Lt Gen Sanjiv Chachra (retd) have not found merit in the contention of Colonel Mukul Dev of the Judge Advocate General’s branch that the show cause notice was device to impede his chances of being promoted to the rank of Brigadier. The bench has said that the allegation of harassment of the Colonel seem far-fetched, when even the root cause of the show cause notice is the legal notice initiated by himself. The bench said that the officer should not run away from responding to the notice putting him to show cause and cannot attach any malafide intention to the respondents.
“We intentionally do not want to enter into more details finding the instant application being premature, thus not sustainable. It calls for dismissal on that count. We hereby expect the applicant to respond to the show cause notice in a timely manner for its logical conclusion. Should he feel aggrieved thereafter, he is at liberty to have recourse to any remedy available to him in accordance with law,” the order dated May 3, 2018 states.
Colonel Mukul Dev, currently serving as Judge Advocate General in 12 Corps in Jodhpur was seeking a stay on the show cause notice which was issued to him on February 12, 2018 asking why action should not be taken against him for violating the provisions of Paragraphs 552 and 559 of the Regulations for the Army for issuing legal notice to Union of India through the Defence Secretary.
The counsel for the officer, Jyoti Singh, had argued that the Army HQs ought to have issued a reply to the legal notice sent by the officer, rather than issuing of a show cause notice to him for violation of the provisions of the Regulations for the Army. She argued that instead of replying the legal notice served upon the Union of India under Section 80 of the Code of Civil Procedure by the officer, the respondents have showed another path of harassing the applicant by issuing him the show cause notice.
The counsel contended that the respondents were trying to place Colonel Mukul Dev on a DV ban, to deny him his rightful consideration and promotion to the rank of Brigadier. The counsel had also sought to link the issue with another petition of the officer in which he had brought out that he was being wronged by his name not being included in the list of officers under consideration in a promotion board for the rank of Brigadier.
The officer was given partial relief in that matter with the Principal Bench waiving off the shortfall in the ‘adequately exercised’ period for the purpose of confidential reports of the petitioner. “We find force in the contention raised by learned senior counsel appearing for the applicant that the entitled special review (first) consideration of the applicant was unduly delayed by the respondents till April 2016 depriving the applicant an opportunity for earlier promotion and meeting the eligibility of the next promotion,” the bench said.