SEEKING JUSTICE THROUGH COURTS:_AN ALARMING TREND
Major
General Mrinal Suman, AVSM, VSM, PhD
There has been an exponential increase in
the number of court cases being filed by service personnel to seek justice. It
is estimated that there are over one lakh cases (pertaining to the armed forces
personnel) pending in various courts with close to 10,000 cases lying in
different High Courts. The trend has acquired alarming dimensions and is
straining the basic fabric of organisational cohesion. Seeking justice through
courts shows soldiers’ lack of faith in the fairness of the system. It reflects
adversely on the quality of India’s military commanders and the well-being of
the Indian armed forces. Soldiers knock at courts’ doors only when driven to it
as a last resort. They feel aggrieved
and deprived of their rightful dues. They have no confidence in organisation’s sense
of justice and fair-play. This loss of credibility leads to dissentions and
litigations.
Unless remedial measures are taken on a
war footing, the situation may drift beyond easy redemption. An objective endeavour has been attempted in
this article to confront the truth rather than brush it under the carpet for a
false sense of complacency. It delves deep into the psycho-legal quagmire to identify
reasons for the current state of affairs where the organisation has failed to
retain trust and confidence of its members.
In order to understand why something is,
it is essential to understand how it came to be. There are four primary reasons
for this state of affairs:-
(a) Lack of Confidence in the Sense of
Fair Play of Military Leaders.
(b) Lack of Continuity of Policy.
(c) Faulty Confidential Reports System.
(d) Lack of Effective Redressal
Mechanism.
Lack
of Confidence in the Sense of Fair Play of Military Leaders
An officer on the reserve list for the
Staff College Course when congratulated responded unexcitedly – “It is of no
use. I am unlikely to get a vacancy as there is an officer from the Chief’s
regiment in the reserve list and he will go.”
At the face of it, it appears to be a very common and innocuous statement,
but when viewed seriously reflects very poorly on the organisation. Here was a
junior officer in the Army, who had no faith in his Chief’s sense of fair-play
and was convinced that he would not get justice from him. Such loss of
credibility is quite disquieting and symptomatic of the malaise.
The most important reason for the surfeit
of court cases is loss of confidence in the sense of justness of the leaders at
the helm of affairs. Soldiers feel aggrieved when they feel deprived of their
rightful due and perceive it as a result of partisanship of their superiors. To
be trusted is the greatest compliment that a leader can earn. Trust is the
expectancy that the followers can rely on a leader’s impartial and just
approach. It is an incredibly potent force and virtually non-substitutable. It
flourishes on credibility that a leader enjoys in his command.
The nature of relationship between a
commander and his subordinates in the defence forces is based on loyalty,
fidelity, fair play and integrity. This builds ‘esprit-de-corps’ which is based
on the twin pillars of commander’s empathy for his subordinates and unflinching
loyalty of the subordinates. Soldiers willingly repose faith in a leader in the
belief that he would safeguard their interests. Therefore, any commander who
acts in a discriminatory manner to grant favours to his regimental mates, community
members or protégé is guilty of breach of trust and faith. Partisanship is impropriety
of the worst kind and erodes credibility of leaders and undermines their
standing in the eyes of the led.
Whereas regimental spirit acts as a force
multiplier and is a battle winning factor at unit/battalion level, when carried
to unhealthy limits at higher levels of command, it affects group cohesion
adversely. The concept of Colonel Commandants further compounds this problem. A
Colonel Commandant feels that furtherance of the interests of his regimental
officers is his moral duty. As regimental affiliation replaces merit, many
deserving personnel suffer and seek justice through courts.
Sadly, community predisposition is the
worst type of partisanship that the services are witnessing in the recent
years. Community-bias was considered a sacrilege earlier. However, this
terrible tendency has ceased to be a taboo now and some commanders flaunt their
community preferences overtly and without any inhibition.
Many commanders feel that they need to
take their staff officers under their wings and promote them even at the cost
of more deserving officers. That is the reason why every aspiring officer wants
to be on the personal staff of upcoming commanders. It is the easiest way to
ensure advancement in career. Policies are changed, dispensations are given and
additional vacancies allotted to a batch to promote such officers. Even adverse
remarks in their confidential reports are removed.
Lack
of Continuity of Policy
Members identify themselves with an
organisation only when rules are applied in an impartial and non-arbitrary
manner. No individual is going to subordinate his personal interests to
organisational interests unless there is a very strong merit-performance
ethical linkage in place.
Major policy changes are made
affecting career advancement of many officers. Lack of continuity of policy has
harmed many careers. For example, there are no set permanent rules for the grant
of general cadre in the Indian Army. It depends entirely on a Chief and his
personal preferences. There is an interesting instance which occurred a few
years ago. A non-infantry Chief inducted a large number of artillery and other
arms officers into the General Cadre. The next Chief who was from the infantry
targeted each one of them with vengeance to finish their careers. Similarly,
another Chief introduced quota based promotions in the general cadre and many
brilliant armoured corps officers suffered.
One Chief was of the view
that every officer in acceptable grade must be promoted without reference to
vacancies available and changed the policy accordingly. It put the system in
total disarray. In a particular batch 90 percent officers became General
officers, with the result that the subsequent four batches suffered as there
were no vacancies for them. The next Chief reverted back to the previous policy
but by then scores of deserving officers had been deprived of their due and had
superannuated.
Frequent change of policy is
a major cause of resentment. Lack of continuity of policy generates uncertainty
and sows seeds of doubts about the underlying reasons for change. In case well-evolved long term policies are
implemented diligently, everyone will accept the outcome in good faith and not
assign motives to the military hierarchy.
Faulty
Annual Appraisal System
Services are highly
hierarchical and protocol oriented organisations. Vacancies at higher levels
are extremely limited. Therefore, promotions are an important aspect of a soldier’s
aspirations. Every time an undeserving officer is promoted on the basis of regimental/community/personal
loyalties rather than merit, a deserving officer gets left out. This vitiates
the environment and forces the affected persons to seek relief from the courts.
The present system of annual
performance appraisal consists of two parts. The first part includes assessment
of personal qualities and demonstrated performance and is shown to the officer
reported upon. The second part contains comments on potential for promotion and
is not shown to the officer reported upon. It has been seen that almost all
officers are graded at 8 points and above on a scale of 9. No assessing officer
wants to annoy his subordinate and hence keeps them in good humour through
liberal award in the first part of the report. But in the second part,
assessing officers are more frank and forthright, secure in the knowledge that
the officer reported upon would never learn about this part of the report.
Herein lies the root cause of most
complaints. As the shown part invariably borders ‘outstanding’ grade, the officer
reported upon becomes certain of getting promoted, confident that he would have
been equally well graded in the second part. Therefore, it comes as a shock to him
when he learns that he has been found unfit for promotion. He fails to
understand as to why despite his outstanding reports, he has been overlooked
for promotion. He starts doubting the fairness of the system and feels wronged.
As a last step, he knocks at the doors of courts to seek justice.
Lack
of Effective Redressal Mechanism
Although the importance of an effective
grievance redressal mechanism is well understood, inadequate attention is being
paid to this critical aspect of man-management. All service personnel are
allowed to seek audience with their commanders to apprise them of their complaint
and seek redressal. In case not fully satisfied, they can submit written appeals
to the Chief (non-statutory complaints) and the Government (statutory
complaints). Time-bound action has been mandated on such complaints.
Due to constant engagements on internal
security duties, the complete system has come under severe pressure. Shortage
of officers has accentuated the problem. Interview or ‘Arzi Report’ mechanism has
degenerated into a worthless ritual. As regards non-statutory and statutory complaints,
against the laid down time span of six months for their final disposal, a
complainant considers himself fortunate if he receives dispensation during his
service. Most complaints shuttle up and down the bureaucratic hierarchy on
technicalities.
The Military Secretary’s Branch, tasked
to handle all complaints, has acquired notoriety for inaction and total lack of
empathy and urgency. Complainants have to pull strings or visit Delhi repeatedly
to coax action on their representations. The whole system is so insensitive that
unless an individual can exert pressure, nothing moves. In some cases,
complainants retire before their cases are finally disposed off, making the
whole exercise meaningless. Handling of complaints by the Ministry of Defence
is even more slipshod. Functionaries have to be approached to have the files
moved. There are also allegations of some favours being sought as quid pro quo.
If in such a despairing environment, a serviceman feels compelled to seek
justice through courts, he cannot be faulted.
The Way Forward
A few years ago,
Adjutant General (AG) of the Indian army was addressing officers at the Army
War College, Mhow. During his talk he exhorted everybody to have faith in the
system and not to resort to representations and court cases. He urged them to
accept supersession in soldierly spirit, as demanding promotion was
‘unofficerlike’. During the lunch break, one student officer reminded him that
more than 70 percent of the then Lieutenant Generals in the army had obtained
promotions through representations to the Government and the courts – the said
AG included. The AG was quick to explain that he was unjustly overlooked and
had simply demanded what was his rightful due. Such incidents show hollowness
of the system.
Only a fair,
transparent and just system can acquire credibility. Mere talks and exhortation
mean little. Some of the measures suggested are as follows:-
·
The
institution of Colonel Commandant is anachronistic and should be abolished as
it breeds parochialism and encourages fissiparous tendencies. To start with, a
Colonel Commandant was like a father figure who acted as a ‘conscience keeper’
of the regiment. Now, their sole job is to extract maximum benefits (both due
and undue) for their respective regiments.
·
Regimental
identity should be limited up to the rank of Colonel. For all senior ranks,
there should be a common uniform with no regimental badges. They must identify
themselves as Army officers of the Indian army rather than be reminded always of
their regimental affiliations.
·
Social
scientists consider military as a highly structured and dynamic society which
needs to follow well laid down policies for its continued sustenance. Therefore,
it is essential to have an institutionalised arrangement for collegiate
decision making with long term policy, which no Chief should be able to alter. Similarly,
no arbitrary or partisan application of rules should be permitted.
·
A
large number of grievances are due to lack of information and some are even misplaced.
Transparency in policies will go a long way to convince the environment of the
fairness of the system.
·
Selection
criteria and selection process need to be overhauled. The current system of
showing demonstrated performance and hiding potential promotes professional
dishonesty. It must be replaced either by an open or a closed appraisal system.
·
For
leaders, impartiality is an ethical requirement and is an essential component
of their morality. Impartiality means treating everyone as equal and rewarding
them on their merit alone. A system should be put in place to monitor biases
and prejudices of senior commanders.
·
System
of granting redressal of grievances must be made more prompt and responsive.
Finally, partisanship in the services gives
rise to fissiparous tendencies and affects cohesion adversely. It generates ill-will
and erodes faith in the impartiality of the system. Therefore, corrective action must be taken on
emergent basis to arrest this unhealthy trend. Health of any vibrant
organisation can be gauged by the degree of confidence that its members have in
its fairness. At present, the services score poorly on this count. Only a
highly credible system can convince the environment to have confidence in the
justness of the system and thus, dissuade servicemen from going to the courts.
