Nagendra Kumar Tripathi vs Chief of Army Staff and Others

Sushil Harkauli, J.—Heard learned counsel for both sides.

According to the letter of the respondents, the petitioner is said to have been prematurely discharged from service under Rule 14 (b) (iii) on his own request. The respondents also enclosed a photocopy of the request application of the petitioner.

Against the premature discharge of the petitioner from the Army he has preferred a statutory complaint u/s 26 of the Army Act, 1950. If has been alleged by the petitioner that said statutory complaint has not been decided so far.

In the circumstances, the respondent No. 1 is directed to consider the statutory complaint in accordance with the procedure of his office and to decide the same within three months of the date on which a certified copy of this order alongwith a self attested copy of this writ petition is presented by the petitioner before the respondent No. 1.

Learned counsel for the petitioner has prayed that Chief of the Army Staff should be directed to decide the statutory complaint by a reasoned order. The prayer cannot be granted for the following reason.

In the office of the Chief of the Army Staff these statutory complaints have a specialised procedure for being dealt with. There is a body known as "Complaint Advisory Board" (C.A.B. for short) which investigates every complaint after making such inquiry as may be considered necessary and a very detailed note resulting from such inquiry with the relevant legal provisions referred is given to the Chief of Army Staff, often with suggestions and options. The C.O.A.S. examines the same and personally under his own signatures passes orders which generally do not contain detailed reasoning. But by and large this procedure has stood the test of time in respect of the inquiry into the statutory complaints and their fair disposal.

It is worthwhile to mention here that if the Court starts issuing direction to the Chief of the Army Staff to decide every statutory complaint of every Jawan and every officer throughout the country by detailed Judgments, the Chief of the Army Staff during his entire tenure would be doing nothing except writing Judgments in respect of such complaints which are thousands in number. Therefore, the request of the learned counsel for the petitioner is not acceptable.

The writ petition is disposed of as above.