Supreme sense

PIL against Lt Gen Bikram Singh alleged a Sikh plot. SC was right to throw it out

The Supreme Courts dismissal of the public interest litigation that sought to quash the elevation of Lieutenant-General Bikram Singh as the next army chief must bring some sober reflection in a runaway public debate. The traditional calm in whats been termed civil-military relations has been rudely disturbed. First,a chasm opened up between the government and outgoing army chief V.K. Singh over his date of birth. This was followed by the army chiefs unprecedented act of taking the government to court,his public claim that he was offered a bribe,and the clanging of alarmist bells over the armys obsolescence. The PIL against the elevation of Lt Gen Singh by several eminent persons,including retired naval chief Admiral L. Ramdas and former CEC N. Gopalaswami,was part of this unfortunate series it alleged that Lt Gen Singhs appointment was manipulated on personal and political considerations and,effectively,sought to reopen the date of birth row. Most disquietingly,it suggested that Lt Gen Bikram Singhs elevation was part of a communally engineered line of succession. The courts refusal to dignify these charges is a message: the poise and dignity of the relationship between the government and the army needs to be restored as does the armys ease with itself.

The succession of an army chief is a non-controversial,apolitical event. It has happened by rote ceremony and ritual. India takes the armys secular,non-sectarian ethos for granted. Even as the polity has been churned by political movements based on caste and religious identity,the army is perceived to be,and has been a parallel universe where narrow loyalties are subsumed,without friction,in an overarching allegiance to the nation. The petition against Lt Gen Singhs elevation did not just do great disservice to this principle but also sought to prop up an artificial spectre of Sikh officers versus the rest.

By insinuating a Sikh conspiracy to wrest the chiefs post the PIL alleged langar talk and claimed the SGPC played a role in the appointment of former army general (retd) J.J. Singh the petition trod on sensitive ground. It has taken time but India has tried hard to lay the ghosts of 1984 to rest. The misdirected enthusiasms or outright mischief of some highly placed and out-of-work petitioners threatened to test this. The Supreme Court has done the right thing by treating the petition with the contempt it deserved.