The Supreme Court recently ordered the reinstatement of four army personnel who were discharged from the services on the allegation of joining the services based on false relationship certificates with ex-army personnel.
The bench of Justice Bela M Tridevi and Justice Pankaj Mithal set aside the impugned order of the Armed Forces Tribunal and observed that the tribunal has acted casually and routinely while affirming the discharge order.
The court noted that the tribunal simply held that the relationship certificates produced by the appellants have been found to be fake even upon verification. It added that the Tribunal also seems to have lost sight of the crucial point of the appellants that they have applied under the general category and not as relatives of servicemen/ex-servicemen.
The bench mentioned that the Tribunal has not produced the alleged certificates which could be held to be fake. Accordingly, the core issue arising in the matter was missed not only by the authorities concerned but by the Tribunal as well. Hence, the orders of discharge/dismissal of the appellants and that of the Tribunal stand vitiated for non-consideration of the material aspect.
The top court also found force in the submission made by the appellants-army personnel and rejected the contention put forth by the Union/Army. It also expressed displeasure with the manner in which the appellants were terminated/discharged from the services by the Army, without even conducting any enquiries to find out the authenticity of the certificates produced by the appellants.
Referring to Paragraph 7 of the Advertisement, which calls for filling up the additional seats from the candidate of open category, the Supreme Court disagreed with the contention of the Union/Army that the army personnels can’t be allowed to continue in service as they have joined the service in an open category.
Considering the aforesaid observations, the Supreme Court allowed the appeal of the army personnels by directing the Union/Army to reinstate them back to the service and providing consequential benefits thereof.