Call on new Army Chief after notification of new committee

Ajay Banerjee

New Delhi, June 7

The appointment of the next Army Chief is expected to take a few more days. A committee, empowered to take a decision on appointing the new chief, will need to be notified by the new government, which is scheduled to be sworn in on June 9.

Appointment protocol

• The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has to be notified for the appointment of the new Army Chief to take place
• The outgoing government had PM Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah as two members of selection committee

The month-long extension in service to the Army Chief, Gen Manoj Pande, ends on June 30.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has to be notified before the appointment of the new Army Chief. The outgoing government had Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah as two members of the committee. It had met on May 26 and decided to give a rare extension in service to General Pande, who was to superannuate on May 31.

Sources said there was a possibility that the composition of the committee could change. NDA allies might insist on expanding it beyond its present two-member strength. The chiefs of all three services retire at 62. Lieutenant General-rank officers and their equivalent in the IAF and the Navy retire at 60. The extension and timing of the decision to announce the new Army Chief has thrown up the possibility of supersession. The one-month extension means that the next two seniormost officers, Lt Gen Upendra Dwivedi, Vice Chief, and Lt Gen Ajai Kumar Singh, Southern Army Commander, will also retire on June 30. However, going by past record, Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria (retd) took over as the IAF Chief on the last day of his service, September 30, 2019, and served for two years.

In light of this, General Dwivedi and General Singh cannot be ruled out. General Dwivedi and General Singh are batchmates, but the former is senior as per the commissioning seniority — that is when they passed out from the military academy.

The big question is that if the government allows General Pande, General Dwivedi and General Singh to retire on June 30, then who is the next in line. The Northern Army Commander, Lt Gen MV Suchindra Kumar, will be the seniormost officer. He is followed by Lt Gen NS Raja Subramani, the Central Army Commander.