Supreme Court: The Bench comprising of AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan, JJ., passed an order wherein they restored the honour of an Army veteran who was one of the officers who led the Operation Blue Star in the year 1984. The Supreme Court in its order upheld the decision of Armed Forces Tribunal to exonerate Major Kunwar Ambreshwar Singh of the charges of alleged misconduct and awarding him the rank of Lt. Colonel post-retirement.
The Chief of the Army staff had refused to grant substantive rank of Lt. Colonel, by time scale, to Major Kunwar Ambreshwar Singh and all other directions which deprived him of promotional avenues. The alleged charge against him was of retaining certain electronic items recovered during “Operation Blue Star” conducted to flush out Sikh extremists from the Golden Temple complex.
The above-stated order of the Chief of Army staff was set aside by the Armed Forces Tribunal (Lucknow Bench), which order was upheld by the Supreme Court bench.
The Bench dismissed the appeal of the Centre against the order of AFT while reducing the costs imposed from Rs 10 lakhs to Rs 1 lakh.
[Source: PTI]
