Govt negotiating with Gen's family for a settlement

The Congress, though officially did not touch upon the Supreme Court order on the date of birth of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General V K Singh on Friday, top sources said the government was in touch with the Chief’s family to negotiate an honourable settlement.

The Congress’ official comment was that the matter was in court. "The matter is sub-judice. What is there for political parties to comment? This is precisely the practice I condemn which the BJP is in the habit of doing," party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi told reporters.

Wondering how political parties could "parachute into this space", he said it is a "sad and bad day for democracy and judiciary" whenever it happens.

But behind-the-scenes indications were that a compromise was in the works. Top government sources said members of Singh’s family had been in touch with Law Minister Salman Khurshid to address the issue of the honour of the COAS.

The terms of the settlement were that the government would write another letter to the Chief assuring him that it held him in the highest esteem, and say that while his recorded date of birth was 10 May 1950, “we recognise that you may have had another date of birth, viz 10 May 1951”. This would have addressed the General’s assertion that he had two dates of birth, but that it was the earlier one that the government had recognised.

General Singh has made it known that he did not want ten more months in service but the fact he had not misrepresented his age. The letter was meant to enable Singh to withdraw his case and retire this year.

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The letter was apparently shown to the family of the chief and their consent taken that the matter would not go further and that in Court the government would say that the matter had ben sorted out amicably.

With the Supreme Court having given time till 10 February to the government and the COAS to ‘sort out’ the matter, the compromise option was on the table.

However, sources said Defence Minister A K Antony and the civilian bureaucracy were still ‘studying the implications” of such a move. Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it was ‘studying’ the matter.

The COAS met Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee last night for less than 10 minutes after he had been kept waiting for nearly 20 minutes because the Finance Minister had another visitor.

Defence Minister A K Antony had issued an order on December 30 turning down the statutory complaint of Gen Singh that his date of birth be treated in Army's records as May 10, 1951 and not as May 10, 1950. The Court on Friday asked the government whether it would like to turn down its previous order.