Dip in military’s legal battles against its own

The armed forces’ effort to reduce the number of cases they fight against their own has seen the withdrawal of just around 180 cases of a total of 7,676, a senior government official said on condition of anonymity.

The armed forces were asked to review the cases because the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) governmentdoesn’twant them to waste time and resources on litigation, and also believes they should not be engaged in legal battles with their own.

Courts too have taken a dim view of such cases. Earlier this year, the ministry of defence was fined Rs 1 lakh each on two separate occasions by the Supreme Court for unnecessary litigation.

As of November 2018, 7,676 cases had been filed by the services against their people, according to a recent review by the ministry of defence. A review of pending cases carried out by the ministry on June 6 was inconclusive. “No clear or satisfactory position is emerging,” the minutes of the meeting accessed by HT said. Subsequently, the ministry on September 7 said in a communication: “Litigations (should) be viewed in an impersonal, non-adversarial and dispassionate manner and should not be made a prestige-issue or a win/loss situation. The tendency to the continuous unethical filing of appeals in issues that have attended finality at the high court or Supreme Court should be checked and all such pending appeals should be identified and immediately withdrawn.”

It reiterated that “appeals should be an exception and not the rule”. It isn’t clear how many cases were withdrawn last year.

Often, apart from engaging government law officers, the three forces hire lawyers and private firms to litigate matters in the Armed Forces Tribunals (AFT) and the Supreme Court.

NEW DELHI: THE ARMED FORCES WERE ASKED TO REVIEW THE CASES BECAUSE THE CENTRE DOESN’T WANT THEM TO WASTE TIME ON LITIGATION