FROM AMBASSADOR GAJENDRA SINGH
The current Indian Express Editor Shekhar Gupta ,at best heads an in house outlet for US/Indian corporate interests ,and plugs in govt and private sector policies ;His idol is Thomas Friedman of New York Times , who described in end 2003, US led illegal invasion of Iraq as Washington's noblest mission to spread democracy .So the article below is interesting .
Some years ago , one minister Kalapnath Rai had described his IAS secretary as a peon , even to make tea , which is true sometimes .That is what most IAS and other civil servants have been reduced to in the absence of statutory safeguards .The political class has used IAS for bending rules and other cadres and services including defense services and IPS for bending the law .
The brazen corrupt political class has reduced the state machinery as its minions .Most empires and states have lasted and survived on the integrity , honesty and the strength of bureaucracy .I have studied some , The Ottomans , The Arab Caliphates, also Persian ,Indian etc .
During my training to familiarise myself about how district administration functions in Coimbatore in early 1962 , I recall district collector Ramchnadran , presiding over developnt council and lecturibg and admonishing MPs and MLAs .Now District officers await outside the circuit houses where MLAs and MPs come on visits .The state of the state of India is bad .
We can see how the political class behaved in end December 2011 on Lokpal bill after Anna Hazare fell ill and now . In election campaigns now ,it is business as usual with crime sheeters as candidates from all parties .
Two pieces a) a letter by Anna Hazare to our PM
Government betrayed people, Parliament with a weak Lokpal Bill: Anna Hazare
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/govt-betrayed-us-with-a-weak-lokpal-anna/223233-37.html and b) on Modi , the very epitome of honesty and integrity and sadhbhavana (!)
The Lokayukta deception
A General's Date
INDIAN EXPRESS Krishnadas Rajagopal : Sun Jan 22 2012
The documentary proof of the date of birth of Chief of Army Staff Vijay Kumar Singh is a trail of paperwork that began over 40 years ago, when an "inadvertent error" was made while applying for the National Defence Academy. He claims that he was then just a 14-year-old school boy.
His petition in the Supreme Court is the General's word on how his concept of dignity and honour got lost in a tangle of forms, personal assurances and lastly, subjugation to "organisational interests" that defined his journey to the top of an institution he now accuses of "administrative inefficiency".
Today, the General admits to the court that he is mauled by the controversy over his age, and only wants to retire and live with dignity and honour.
"It is of utmost importance that clarity be achieved on my date of birth before my tenure reaches an end. This issue is raked up by the Union of India highly belatedly and at a time when the length of my service is nearing its end. If my date of birth is indeed 10.5.1950 (as the government says), I am due to retire in June 2012 and if it 10.5.1951, I will retire in May 2013," he says. What he wants from the top court is only a "final decision to be taken on his claim for reconciliation of the records with regard to his correct date of birth" and consequential benefits.
He says this while making it "abundantly clear" that regardless of the result of this petition or controversy, he expects the government to "undoubtedly" exercise its right to determine the tenure of his office as the Chief of Army Staff.
The petition poses two questions for the court to answer: was it the "genuine mistake" of his much younger self in 1965 that brought him to the Supreme Court to mark an unprecedented chapter in the country's history? Or did the army and government fail his good faith to "automatically update and remove the discrepancy over his date of birth"?
Factual matrix
The General begins his petition by taking the blame on himself after a clerk "inadvertently" filled his date of birth as 10.5.1950 in his NDA application form. At that time, he did not even have the class 10 certificate from the Rajasthan Secondary Education Board to prove his date of birth.
His father, Major Jagat Singh, was however quick to get his birth certified as 10.5.1951 from the Commanding Officer of the 14 Rajput Regiment, just in time for his son to attend the written tests. This is the first of many records Singh depends on in the Supreme Court.
Though medical test reports and verifications conducted by the DIG of Police, CID and IB show his birth year as 1951, Singh points to how the government relies on a form containing a "clerical error" to declare his birth year as 1950.
It is rather strange that the Ministry of Defence dealing with such a sensitive issue accepted a Form filled up by a clerk, i.e. SP 44 (automatically filled by office staff from the UPSC form at the interview stage of the selection), and ignored all verification done by senior revenue and police officials (after the final selection), which cull out my date of birth as May 10, 1951," Singh says.
The petition records how his father, at the time of his joining NDA in 1966, had written to the UPSC, annexing a provisional matriculation certificate to clarify his date of birth as May 5, 1951. "Had this clarification not been accepted, clearance to join NDA would not have been given," Singh reasons.
In 1969, Singh found himself again caught in the age loop when the Indian Military Academy dossier showed his year of birth as 1950 on the basis of the wrongly filled UPSC application form. IMA, the petition says, corrected the date after his school forwarded a copy of his school leaving certificate.
In 1971, almost a year after he was commissioned as officer in the infantry's 2nd Battalion of the Rajput Regiment, he submitted his matriculation certificate to the Adjutant General (AG) Branch, which he says is the official record keeper of the army.
But it was only 14 years later that Singh chanced upon the existence of contradictory records of his year of birth in the army. In 1985, through a colleague, he learnt that his birth year was recorded as 1950 in the Army List, a confidential document published in 1974-75. This record was in direct conflict with the AG Branch record and would later turn out as prime evidence, along with the UPSC application form, for the Military Secretary's (MS) Branch and Ministry of Defence to conclude that his official birth year was 1950.
"I am certain that there was no communication on the issue of discrepancy in relation to my date of birth between the AG Branch and the MS Branch," Singh notes.
In 2006, after 36 years of having being commissioned into the army and despite efforts to reconcile the "discrepancy", Singh, to his "utter dismay and surprise", got a letter from the MS Branch pointing out the dissonance in his age.
At this point, Singh asks the court to reflect on why the MS Branch was silent for all these years: "There exists a detailed procedure for verification of all data given in the confidential reports and for 35 years, it was being scrutinised scrupulously every year by the MS Branch. Had there been an incorrect date, it would have been notified to the unit concerned of the officer as well as the officer himself."
In reply to this question, the MS Branch simply writes that its records were based on the 1965 UPSC application form and counters that Singh should have changed his date of birth to 1951 within two years from the date of his commissioning as required under a 1954 Defence Ministry Memorandum.
To this, Singh argues that he technically became a commissioned officer in 1971 after he produced his matriculation certificate, and till then his candidature was only termed "provisional" by the AG Branch. Besides, he went on to clarify, he had "never asked for a change of his date of birth but had only requested that the records of the MS and AG branches be harmonised".
With Singh at the time poised to assume the rank of Lt General with a clear shot to be Army Chief, the Ministry of Defence stepped into the fray for an explanation from the MS Branch on the dual dates of his birth. The MS Branch replied that its records were based on the UPSC form and the Army List. Singh shoots back, saying that the Army List with the MS Branch was a confidential document with hardly any access.
In January 2008, Singh suddenly decided to accept the army's line. This "acceptance" is later termed by the army as an "admission" from Singh that he was indeed born in 1950 and not the following year as he had claimed all along.
But Singh counters that his concession was made in a "hurry" and under the influence of his immediate superior and then army chief General Deepak Kapoor who assured him that he would resolve the issue.
"The alleged admission was not a free admission; rather, it was made in a hurry and not with total independence of mind but under an apprehension of some proceeding being initiated against me, being a disciplined member of the Forces," he defends.
In December 2008, with no word from the then army chief, Singh wrote to the MS Branch for a fresh verification of his date of birth. The branch refers to his "admission" in January and informs him that it does not "verify" dates of birth.
Following this, the defence ministry in 2011 rejects his pleas for an amendment of his date of birth based on Attorney General GE Vahanvati's opinion that any such amendment is not "legally tenable".
There are three questions to which Singh wants an answer in the Supreme Court:
Why is such importance being given to the inadvertent mistake of a 14-year-old boy while ignoring the date of birth recorded in public records?
Why was the February 25, 2011 order by the AG Branch—the "final authority" over dates of birth in the army—reconciling the difference of date of birth with the MS Branch not treated as final?
Why was he, the senior most officer in the army, "treated in a manner which reflects total lack of procedure and principles of natural justice and that too on an opinion obtained from the Attorney General?"
Supporting documents
Documents in the petition where the army concedes Singh's birth year is 1951
On January 30, 2008, the MS Branch, in a letter to Defence Ministry, "accepted" that the documents in the AG Branch reflect Singh's date of birth as May 10, 1951. It admits that it had no information of these records.
In a reply to an RTI by Kamal Taori on February 23, 2011, the Army HQ informs that date of birth of Singh as per the AG Branch records and the high school certificate is May 10, 1951.
On July 1, 2011, MS Branch issues a memorandum stating that past records of the Selection Board show that Master Data Sheets drawn at the time of consideration for Singh's promotion to various ranks show his date of birth to be May 10, 1951.
On March 30, 2011, Controller of Defence Accounts records show Singh's date of birth as May 10, 1951.
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