Supreme Court has reinstated in service a Lt Colonel, an ENT specialist in the Army Medical Corps (AMC), faulting the convening of general court martial (GCM) against the officer mainly because the Army had appointed a judge advocate, who renders legal advice to the
GCM
, who was lower in rank to that of the officer proceeded against, reports
Dhananjay Mahapatra
.
In Sept 2002, it was alleged that while examining new recruits at the Military Hospital, Secunderabad, Lt Colonl Rahul
Arora
had accepted a bribe to change ‘unfit’ remark to ‘review after 15 days’ for one of the recruits. Lt Colonel Arora was chargesheeted and a general court martial found him guilty to order his dismissal from service. The Armed Forces Tribunal upheld the dismissal.
However, the Punjab and Haryana high court overturned the general court martial decision faulting the appointment of the judge advocate, who was in the rank of a major which was lower than the officer proceeded against. The high court had said that it was against the law laid down by the SC in its decision in 2000 in the Charanjit
Singh Gill
case, which had barred appointment of a judge advocate junior to the officer facing GCM. The Union govt had appealed against the HC verdict in the Supreme Court.
A bench of Justices Prashant K Mishra & P B Bharale said not only was HC correct in declaring convening of GCM illegal, it was also improper on the part of Army authorities to tweak the letter appointing the judge advocate after it was issued to
Lt Col Arora
.
