Exemplary punishments given in officer-jawan clashes: Antony

After incidents of clashes between officers and jawans, commanders have been told to have zero tolerance in such cases and exemplary punishments are promulgated in open forum to give "necessary preventive lessons" to the personnel, Government today said.
In a written reply to a query in Rajya Sabha, Defence Minister A K Antony said the separate incidents of clashes between Army officers and jawans in Leh, Gurdaspur and Samba in Jammu and Kashmir are "aberrations" and do not indicate towards declining discipline and leadership standards in the force.
The Army has already taken steps against its personnel in these cases and more than 200 officers and jawans have faced either disciplinary or administrative action last year.

On August 8 last year, some jawans agitated against the Commanding Officer and certain functionaries of the 16 Cavalry unit in Samba while on May 10-11, 2012, a case of manhandling between officers and other ranks of 226 artillery unit took place at Mahe field firing ranges in Leh, he said.
Antony said On April 29 in 2010, an altercation had taken place between an officer and a jawan in 45 Cavalry unit in Punjab.
"These cases are aberrations and do not indicate declining discipline and leadership standards in the Army. The environment has been sensitised and commanders have been instructed to have zero tolerance towards such cases.

"Stringent and prompt action is initiated whenever such an incident comes to light. The punishments are exemplary and promulgated in an open forum so that the environment draws necessary preventive lessons," he said.
The Defence Minister said various measures like better man management, adequate grievance redressal mechanisms etc have been put in place to address the causative factors.