The Lucknow bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal on Friday ordered the demotion of a lieutenant general rank officer to brigadier for manipulating his service record in connivance with defence ministry officials for a promotion.
The tribunal asked the officer, Lt Gen NK Mehta, to pay Rs 5 lakh as cost for concealing material facts. It also imposed a Rs 50 lakh fine on the defence ministry, Army headquarters and military secretary branch for failing to maintain a benchmark for promotion in the forces.
Lt Gen Mehta is one of the senior-most serving officers of the Army Ordnance Corps.
The tribunal advised the ministry of defence to be “more responsible” and held that “looking to the vantage position of the Army, the MoD should not work like an ordinary government office where bureaucracy rules the roost and acts as eminence grises.”
The division bench passed the orders while dismissing an application filed by Mehta.
“Needless to say, it’s such type of incidents and lack of probity in the system, which paves the way for sleeper cells of foreign countries to be activated to enter and manage the defence purchases and derive benefits of kickbacks,” the bench stated.
source: TOI
