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Supreme Court to hear pleas against Agnipath scheme tomorrow
A bench of justices Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and AS Bopanna will consider the matter, the list of business uploaded on the court website stated on Wednesday.
The Supreme Court will on Friday examine a clutch of petitions challenging the Centre’s Agnipath scheme for short-term recruitment to the armed forces.
A bench of justices Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and AS Bopanna will consider the matter, the list of business uploaded on the court website stated on Wednesday.
The batch of cases were mentioned on July 4 before a vacation bench, which said that the matter would be listed before an appropriate bench in the week commencing July 11 – upon reopening of the top court following the summer break between May 23 and July 10.
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Advocate Kumud Lata had on July 4 mentioned the petition on behalf of Harsh Ajay Singh, requesting for an urgent hearing. Advocate ML Sharma, another petitioner questioning the validity of the scheme, had also mentioned his plea for listing on that day.
Ahead of registrations for the first batch of Agniveers in the armed forces that began on June 24, the Centre on June 19 approached the Supreme Court seeking a right to be heard before any action is taken on the public interest litigations (PILs) challenging the scheme.
In its caveat, the Centre told the court: “Let nothing be done in the above-mentioned matter (Agnipath scheme) without notice to the undersigned.”
Since the launch of the Agnipath scheme on June 14, four PILs have been filed in the Supreme Court. The petitioners include Harsh Ajay Singh, two advocates, Vishal Tiwari and ML Sharma, and an ex-serviceman, Ravindra Singh Shekhawat.
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The petitions have challenged the Agnipath scheme, which provides for the recruitment of youths in the age bracket of 17-and-a-half to 21 for four years with the provision to retain 25% of them for 15 more years while the remaining 75% will get a one-time financial package of approximately ₹11.71 lakh. The announcement led to widespread protests in several states against the scheme. Later, the government extended the upper age limit to 23 years for recruitment in 2022.
Singh, in his plea, claimed the Agnipath scheme “undermines the armed forces’ professionalism, ethos, and fighting spirit and will potentially lead to the militarisation of civil society”.
Pointing to the large-scale violence witnessed in the country against the scheme, the PIL stated, “The scheme is facing a country-wide violent protest due to its uncertainty, future insecurity and giving precedence to economy over security.”
Singh even questioned the efficacy of the six-month training spell for the Agniveers as inadequate for having a “battleworthy” and “suitably proficient” force.
The petition by Sharma said, “Contrary to the constitutional provisions and without having approval in Parliament and without any Gazette notification, the respondent (Centre) quashed century-old army selection process and imposed impugned Agniveer-22 scheme in the country… and declared to start it from June 24.”
The petition termed the scheme “illegal” and “unconstitutional” as it urged the apex court to quash the June 14 press note issued by the ministry of defence launching the scheme. It stated that an officer selected under permanent commission in the army gets to retire at the age of 60 years while an officer who joins the army under the short service commission (SSC) is allowed to serve for a period of 10/14 years. However, under the present scheme, after four years, only 25% of the Agniveers will be retained while the remaining 75% will be sent out of service.
While Sharma’s petition seeks no order against the violence that erupted following the scheme’s launch, the other plea filed by Tiwari has sought an enquiry into the large-scale violence reported from states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Rajasthan and Telangana where trains were burnt, public and police vehicles damaged, and highways blocked.
Tiwari’s petition said, “Such experimental radical change in the structure and pattern of the military can lead to severe strategic uncertainties which could compromise the national security of the country.” He even demanded a claim commissioner to assess the damage caused to public property in the protests and a report to be submitted by the concerned states on the occurrence of violence.
Ex-serviceman Shekhawat’s plea has sought directions to constitute a committee of veterans, the chief of all the armed forces and other experts to look into the proposed scheme, besides initiating a ‘pilot project’, to study the cause and effect of the scheme, and the impact of the newly introduced training process on combat effectiveness, operational readiness and defence preparedness.
