Lieutenant General Dalbir Singh Suhag. (PTI Photo/File)The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the appointment of Lieutenant Generals Dalbir Singh Suhag and Sanjiv Chachra as heads of the Eastern and Northern Commands respectively in 2012 and observed that seniority alone cannot be the criterion for selection to such crucial posts. The bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and Hemant Gupta dismissed a plea by Lt Gen Ravi Dastane.
The bench held: “Placed below the COAS (Chief of Army Staff), the post of Army Commander is of crucial significance to the organisational structure of the Army. Seniority may be a relevant consideration — seniority brings with it experience of organisation, experience in handling situations and experience in perspective and planning. The post, however, remains a selection post. In making appointments to such crucial posts, which carry enormous functional responsibilities bearing on defence needs of the Armed Forces and ultimately of the nation, a range of relevant considerations can be borne in mind.
“It would not be appropriate in the course of judicial review to confine the appointing authority to a narrow range of considerations. The appointing authority is best suited to determine who among the officers in the rank of Lieutenant General is suited for appointment against a vacancy,” the bench held.
Dastane had questioned the correctness of the September 6, 2013 order of the Principal Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal rejecting his challenge to Suhag and Chachra’s selection as Army Commanders.
He had challenged their selection contending that it was taken exclusively on the basis of seniority, without a comparative evaluation of the merits of other officers in the rank of Lt Gen who fulfilled the requirements.
The court said, “An officer has no vested right to claim promotion on the basis of seniority alone. But that does not mean that the authority entitled to make the appointment must ignore seniority. Officers of the Army who attain the rank of Lieutenant General progress through the hierarchical structure after fulfilling rigorous criteria of assessment. The principle that the appointment of an Army Commander is made by selection does not require that the criterion of seniority should be ignored. The principle that seniority alone does not confer a right to appointment to a selection post does not mean that the authority making the appointments must be oblivious to seniority,” it said.
Following the Tribunal’s decision, Suhag was appointed as COAS and retired from service on December 31, 2016. Chachra retired from service on May 31, 2014. Dastane retired on September 30, 2014
