Keep ego in check when dealing with juniors, says AFT while upholding Captain’s court-martial conviction for assaulting jawan
Vijay Mohan
Chandigarh, April 8
The Armed Forces Tribunal has, while upholding the conviction of an Army Captain by General Court Martial (GCM) for assaulting a junior, held that in dealing with subordinates, ego must be kept in check.
“This case throws up life lessons not only for uniformed personnel but administrators in general,” the Bench of Justice Sudhir Mittal and Lt Gen Ravendra Pal Singh said in its order of April 8.
“If a subordinate has misbehaved or has acted in a disrespectful manner, action should be taken only in accordance with the prescribed rules and procedure. Else, the situation may blow out of proportion and result in a situation never envisaged,” the Bench added.
The Captain was tried on two charges under Section 47 of the Army Act for using criminal force to a person subject to the act who was subordinate to him and ill-treating him. He was awarded forfeiture of two years’ service for the purpose of promotion and a severe reprimand.
The incidents had taken place in 2010 at an armoured regiment based at Tibri Cantonment adjacent to Gurdaspur.
The Bench observed that the appellant was a young Captain at that time with just about three years of service, who felt affronted by the action of his subordinate during morning PT and called him to the officers’ mess through a senior officer.
There, the situation took an unexpected turn and resultantly, by word of mouth, information spread in the unit that the subordinate had been manhandled and severely ill-treated by officers.
This resulted in a mutiny-like situation which almost led to the disbandment of the unit. A number of personnel below officer rank were punished, with some of them being dismissed from service. Officers too, were court-martialled.
The Captain had argued before AFT that the findings of GCM were perverse and the court had failed to take into consideration the cross-examination of prosecution witnesses. He also sought to impeach some of the statements made by witnesses and claimed that he had been made a scapegoat.
After perusing the proceedings of GCM and analysing the statements made by the witnesses, the Bench rejected the Captain’s contentions, being without merit, and remarked that a prudent person commanding troops is expected to know the impact of his physical actions.
