Consider conveying course reports of staff colleges to officers: AFT to service chiefs

BENCH PASSED THE ORDERS WHILE EXAMINING THE CASE OF LT COL PANKAJ BISHT WHO CLAIMED THAT HE WAS GIVEN LOW MARKS

The principal bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) comprising chairperson Justice Virender Singh and Lt Gen Sanjiv Chachra (Retd) has asked the three service chiefs to consider communicating course reports of Defence Services Staff College (DSOC) and Technical Services Staff College (TSOC) to officers to remove any apprehensions of injustice from their minds.

The bench passed these orders on October 16 while examining the case of Lt Col Pankaj Bisht of the Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME) who had claimed that he was given low marks by the Selection Board considering him for the rank of full Colonel due to the disclosure of remarks in his course report for TSOC wherein he was stated to have had a “casual report”.

Though after examining the records of the Selection Board and the marks allotted to the officer vis-a-vis his comparative merit with other officers in his batch, the AFT concluded that the said observation did not affect his promotion prospects, the tribunal observed that the defence services must consider disclosing the course reports to officers undergoing the courses to remove any doubts from their minds.

The AFT has stated that the DSOC and TSOC were important courses, which could change the complexion of the career of officers, and hence whenever any weak or adverse aspects were observed in their performance, these should be communicated to the affected officers as is the case with confidential reports, so that they could improve themselves.

The AFT has asked the three Service Chiefs to ponder over the issue after seeking inputs from the commandants of the two Staff Colleges. The tribunal has also observed that while it did not doubt the system, there was always scope for improvement.