This is a post wherein, a Lt Colonel aggrieved by the dismissal of his son from IMA filed a petition in Delhi High court for reinstating the candidate, The High court after hearing all the arguments decided that IMA had done nothing wrong or unfair and the son was actually not suited to a military lifestyle.
Introduction
A father’s ambition does not describe criteria for selection as a commissioned officer in the Indian Army, the Delhi High Court held, while refusing to order the Indian Military Academy (IMA) to take back a candidate who was not suited to a military lifestyle.
Facts of the case
The nominee, son of Lieutenant Colonel and fourth generation of the family, entered the IMA in July 2017 for his pre-commissioning training to join the Indian Army as a commissioned officer. However, he was ordered to withdraw from the Academy in November 2019.
According to the petition, the applicant claimed that he should have completed his training as a commissioned officer in a year and a half, by the end of 2018. He said that he had been subjected to rigging and retaliation for different offences right from the beginning of the first term, and a week before the end of the second term in May 2018, he had been presented with a show cause notice as to why he should not be reduced to a two-term exercise of 60 restrictions. In the next two days, he had to repeat the second term.
He believed that despite his sincere and best efforts, he was unduly targeted and singled out by his Company Commander.With regard to the final physical training exams, the complainant reported that he had been instructed to stand outside the Battalion Duty Officer’s room in Full Pack 08 with 40 kg of sand and bricks filled in from 2300 to 0200 hours. As a result, he was tired, unable to perform to the best of his physical ability, and failed in the three tests.
He was given further punishments in November 2019, after which his name was removed from the IMA. The authorities denied the allegations and stated that IMA officers had helped the applicant in improving his attitude and results, but he could not fit into the discipline needed for life in the Indian Army.It said that he was also found to be physically improper, in particular because he was overweight and that action had been taken strictly in compliance with the Rules of Procedure, and on the Third Delegation, withdrawal was the only path left to the IMA.
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Legal standpoint
Judges Rajiv Sahai Endlaw and Asha Menon noted that the candidate ‘s father, a serving senior army officer, had made a fervent appeal to accept the case of his son leniently, as the commissioning of his son as an officer of the Indian Army meant a great deal to him, as it would be the fourth generation of his family to join forces. “While it may be possible for us to sympathise with the Lt . Col., it is not the father’s ambition that sets the requirements for selection as a commissioned officer in the Indian Army,” the bench said.
The High Court noted the records that the nominee found it difficult to settle in the regimented and highly disciplined lifestyle of the IMA. “The father would be well advised to give his son the freedom to choose his life path and encourage him to blossom in whatever he likes, which is definitely not the Indian Army. He had been absent from training and special and important events by maling or claiming illness, and it was this absenteeism and lying about the reasons for such acts that contributed to the imposition of a number of penalties and the creation of the Honour Code Committee against him, he said. The bench said it was abundantly clear that the petitioner was not suited to a military lifestyle, and that his father’s wishes may have moved him in that direction, adding that he was struggling to meet his father’s standards.
“The petitioner and his father would do well to accept the decision of the IMA gracefully and to use all the lessons of the two years spent by the petitioner at the IMA to work towards a promising future in some other chosen sector. There is no validity in the present petition which is therefore denied, “the bench said in its judgement.
After reviewing the documents, the court noted that the IMA had acted solely in compliance with the rules on fines, relegation and withdrawal. The High Court held that the Honor Code Committee was duly formed to investigate the actions of the nominee and that the hearings were conducted reasonably and that the decision was taken reasonably. “The reason provided by the petitioner for failure in the three physical tests might sound plausible, but the fact that the records indicate that the petitioner’s obesity was the main cause of the failure,” he said.
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Conclusion
The court argued that the use of language and the conviction that he was right, while everyone else was wrong and levelled allegations that the Honor Code Committee was both biased and predetermined in its approach to the petitioner underscores the correctness of the decision of the IMA to expel him from the academy.
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This post was written by Kosha Doshi
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