Members of the Armed Forces Tribunal appointed

Monday, June 22, 2009 Ministry of Defence
The Government has approved the appointment of following as Judicial and Administrative Members in the Armed Forces Tribunal (Principal Bench and Various Regional Benches), in scale of pay Rs. 26,000/- (fixed) (pre revised), for a period of 4 years from the date of assumption of the post or till the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier.

Judicial Members
1. Mr. Justice Janardan Sahai
2. Mr. Justice K Padmanabhan Nair (Retd)
3. Mr. Justice Shilendra Shanker Kulshrestha (Retd)
4. Mr. Justice Ghanshyam Prasad (Retd)
5. Mr. Justice Manak Lall Mohta
6. Mr. Justice AC Arumugaperumal Adityan
7. Mr. Justice Anwar Ahmad (Retd)
8. Mr. Justice Bhanwaroo Khan

Administrative Members
1. Lt. Gen (Retd) S Pattabhiraman
2. Lt. Gen (Retd) Amrik Singh Bahia
3. Lt. Gen (Retd) Madan Gopal
4. Lt. Gen (Retd) Susheel Gupta
5. Lt. Gen (Retd) M L Naidu
6. Lt. Gen (Retd) HS Panag
7. Lt. Gen ( Retd) Thomas Mathew
8. Lt. Gen ( Retd) PR Gangadharan
9. Lt. Gen ( Retd) SS Dhillon
10. Lt. Gen (Retd) ZU Shah
11. Lt. Gen (Retd) RK Chhabra
12. Lt. Gen (Retd) NS Brar
13. Vice Adm (Retd) RF Contractor
14. Lt. Gen (Retd) BS Sisodia
15. Commodore (Retd) Mohan Phadke

The Union Cabinet gave its approval for the creation of 31 posts for the Armed Forces Tribunal on June 24, 2008 paving the way for the creation of the proposed independent adjudicating forum for dispensing cost effective and speedy justice to the armed forces personnel. The posts include 1 of Chairperson and 29 posts of members for the Principal Bench at New Delhi and 8 Regional Branches. It also includes one post of Principal Registrar at the Principal Bench.

The Principal Bench at New Delhi will have three courts and will have jurisdiction over High Courts in the State of Delhi. Similarly, the Chandigarh and Lucknow Benches will have 3 courts each. The Chandigarh Bench will have jurisdiction over Punjab, Haryana, J&K and Himachal Pradesh. The Lucknow Bench will have jurisdiction over Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh. The other locations for the Benches with one court each will be Kolkata, Guwahati, Mumbai, Kochi, Chennai and Jaipur. The Kolkata Bench will have jurisdiction over West Bengal, Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. The Guwahati Bench will have jurisdiction over Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh. The Mumbai Bench will have jurisdiction over Maharashtra, Goa and Gujarat. While Kochi Bench will have jurisdiction over Kerala and Karnataka, Chennai Bench will look after Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. The Jaipur Bench will have jurisdiction over Rajasthan.

The setting up of the Armed Forces Tribunal has fulfilled a long-felt need of the country’s three defence services. Over 9,800 cases filed by Service personnel are pending before various High Courts. The maximum number of cases numbering 2487 will be transferred to the Chandigarh Bench while 2407 will be adjudicated by the Lucknow Bench. Two thousand three hundred and six (2,306) cases are proposed to be transferred to the Delhi Principal Bench.

The Armed Forces Tribunal Act, 2007 which was passed by the Parliament during the Winter Session of 2007 received the assent of the President on 25th December, 2007. The Act was notified on 28th December, 2007. It provides for adjudication or trial by the tribunal of disputes and complaints with respect to commission, appointments, enrolment and conditions of service in respect of persons subject to Three Services Acts as also for appeals arising out of orders, findings or sentences of court martial held under the said Acts and for matters connected with them. The Act came into force with effect from 15th June, 2008. The Tribunal will have original jurisdiction in service matters and appellate jurisdiction in court martial matters. Mr. Justice Ashok Kumar Mathur was appointed as the Chairman of the Tribunal. The Tribunal will consist of 1 Chairperson, 14 judicial and 15 administrative members. The administrative members shall be officer of the rank of Major General or above in the Army or equivalent rank in the Navy or the Air Force with three years of service in that rank. JAG of three Services with at least one year of service as JAG shall also be eligible. The judicial member should be serving or retired judge of the High Court. All appointments to the Tribunal are made in consultation with the Chief Justice of India. The Tribunal has powers to punish for its contempt.
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Samir / RAJ
Members of the Armed Forces Tribunal appointed

Comment: JAG branch needs to be streamlined and its officers impove their professional skills to ensure the system is just and free from influence and corruption.

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?

Women to get permanent commission in four non-combat wings of Armed Forces

New Delhi, September 26 Finally, the Government has decided to grant permanent commission to women officers in the three Armed Forces but with a rider — women will only be considered for permanent commission in four non- combat arms, including the Army Education Corps, Judge Advocate General and Accounts streams.

Also, 2015 is expected to be the earliest date by which women would be technically sworn in as permanent commission officers of the Armed Forces. A formal order to the effect was signed by Defence Minister A K Antony on Friday, and the three services will now work out modalities for training and induction of women officers in select branches.

Until now, the Armed Forces have been largely male dominated with women being inducted only as short service commission officers with a service life of less than 15 years and not rising above the rank of Lt Colonel. With the permanent commission, women can now rise to the highest rank of Lt Gen.

While the ministry has given the go-ahead for permanent commission, it has left for the Armed Forces to sort out the more contentious issues like opening of the ‘males-only’ academies like the National Defence Academy (NDA) and Indian Military Academy (IMA) for women cadets.
Women to get permanent commission in four non-combat wings of Armed Forces

The IAF will now allow women pilots to fly the advanced heavy-lift IL-76 transport aircraft, in addition to the AN-32, Avro and Dornier aircraft as well as the Chetak and Cheetah helicopters they are already flying. There are currently 63 women pilots in IAF.
Forces open doors to women, but just a little