Seeking Justice Through Courts_An Alarming Trend

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.