Armed Forces Tribunal: Coming of age, will it take off?

The setting up of the AFT which is bound to bring the much needed relief to military litigants, shall also ensure handling of critical issues by former members of judiciary who would be from outside the ‘chain of command’ and therefore dealing cases with a clean slate with no biases or prejudices. They shall of course be assisted by former military officers- the administrative members, who would, with consensus, be providing important inputs resulting in what hopefully would be well-rounded judicial pronouncements meeting the aspirations of all affected. The AFT would also be in conjunction with the observations by the Supreme Court about providing a proper appellate body for courts martial. But the AFT, without in-house introspection (below) would not be an answer to the shortcomings of the system. What needs to be eliminated is the subjectivity at all levels, starting from initial stages of Inquiry ending with the Trial. The letter of law at all stages needs to be followed in spirit and not as a sheer formality, an effective system of defence for the accused needs to be put into place and senior officers in the chain of command need to be sensitised so as not to interfere in the deliverance of justice in the military. Presiding officers and officers of the JAG Branch have to be absolutely inert from slanted influences and pre-decisions at all levels. Objectivity, change in judicial perception coupled with the inception of the AFT, hopefully this would put to rest those strong adjectives for military system of jurisprudence.
Posted by Navdeep/ Maj Navdeep Singh at 5:25 AM

Comment: We need to keep track of the first case and its judgement for Military Records. Will Pension anomalies hanging fire for decades be resolved? What about string of cases pending in courts? Will we see the syndrome of delayed Justice redeemed for litigants?