Vijay Mohan
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, October 22
In a twist to the battle for restoration of entitled rations to officers of the armed forces, a senior officer who had shot off a legal notice to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has contended that he was punished for doing the same on the basis of a fudged copy of the notice. Entitled rations, which were stopped two years ago, have been restored to the officers posted in peace areas from October 16, 2019.
The officer, Col Mukul Dev of the Judge Advocate General’s Branch, was issued a show-cause notice for having sent a legal notice to the MoD for restoration of rations and thereafter he was awarded “Displeasure” in May 2018 for having violated Army regulations. This rendered him ineligible for promotion to the rank of Brigadier.
In a petition filed before the Armed Forces Tribunal challenging the award of displeasure that is scheduled to come up for hearing before the Principal Bench in December 2019, Col Mukul Dev has stated that he had sought a certified copy of the legal notice upon which the Army issued him the notice, but it was never supplied to him.
Claiming that on his inquiries he learnt that the legal notice circulated on the social media is not the same as sent by him to the MoD and it seems to have been fudged, he submitted that the Army authorities also could not produce the original copy of the notice for perusal of the tribunal when challenged by him.
The legal notice was sent to the MoD under provisions of Section 80 of the Civil Procedure Code. In accordance with the Army’s policy dated Oct 24, 2016, for dealing with legal notices, all notices under Section 80 of the CPC are to be replied after due processing and application of mind, covering each of the issues raised. It clearly means that any person can give legal notice to the authorities and it cannot be construed as any violation.
However, the show-cause notice alleged that Col Mukul violated Para 552 and Para 559 that cover the authorised channel of official correspondence and communication with officers at Army HQs and MoD.
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