The Chief of Army Staff Gen V K Singh is an anxious man. He had filed a statutory complaint about his date of birth on August 20. According to rules, the government has to reply to a statutory complaint within 90 days. So, the government’s reply should come any day now. The question is, what happens after that. Will the government concede it made a mistake and the chief is actually younger than he is? Or, will it rule that the date of birth as on the records is accurate? If it is the latter, the chief can stay on and serve the remainder of his term (which ends on June 1, 2012) or he can quit (which should be the case if he loses a statutory complaint). The word is out that he has been consulting lawyers. Does that mean he will go to the court if the government rules against him? And, of course, if the government says he is right, he gets to serve another ten months.


