Vijay Mohan
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, November 17
The Central government has cleared the appointment of 11 judicial members and 12 administrative members of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT). They will be posted to various benches of the AFT across the country, where a large number of posts had been lying vacant.
For the first time since the Tribunal was established in August 2009, a civilian officer has been appointed as an administrative member. While judicial members should have served as a judge of the High Court, administrative members were required to be senior members of the armed forces.
New rules issued by the government in 2020 for appointment as members of tribunals, which had come under the judicial scanner, made any person with experience in the field of economics, management, commerce, industry, etc. eligible to be appointed as an administrative member, in addition to retired defence officers of the rank of major general or equivalent.
Serving and retired judges from various High Courts appointed as judicial members include Justice Ravindra Nath Kakkar (Allahabad), Justice Ananda Kumar Mukherjee (Calcutta), Justice Anu Malhotra (Delhi), Justice Asha Menon (Delhi), Justice Shailendra Shukla (Madhya Pradesh), Justice Sudhir Mittal (Punjab and Haryana), Justice Surinder Gupta (Punjab and Haryana), Justice Goverdhan Bardhar (Rajasthan), Justice Shekher Dhawan (Punjab and Haryana), Justice Madhumati Mitra (Calcutta) and Justice Anil Kumar (Allahabad).
Among them, Justices Mukherjee, Malhotra, Menon and Mittal are still serving.
Sanjiv Mittal, a retired Indian Defence Accounts Service officer of the 1984 batch is among the newly appointed administrative members of the AFT, the first civilian to hold such a post.
Three other officers whose appointment has been cleared are still serving. They are Air Marshal Manavendra Singh, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Training Command, Rear Admiral Dhiren Vig, Senior Directing Staff, National Defence College and Maj Gen Sanjay Singh of the Infantry. They will be required to hang up their boots before joining the AFT.
The retired officers include Lt Gen Chandi Prashad Mohanty, Lt Gen Rakesh Kumar Anand, Lt Gen Shashank Shekhar Mishra, Vice Admiral Atul Kumar Jain, Air Marshal Balakrishnan Suresh, Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, Lt Gen Ravendra Pal Singh and Lt Gen Gopal Ramaswamy.
The appointment of judicial as well as administrative members is for a period of four years from the date they assume office or till they attain the age of 67 years or until further orders, whichever is earlier, according to a memorandum issued by the Secretariat of the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet.
Presently headed by Justice Rajendra Menon as the chairperson, the AFT adjudicates on service matters relating to defence personnel. Besides the Principal Bench in New Delhi, AFT has regional benches at Chandigarh, Lucknow, Kolkata, Guwahati, Chennai, Kochi, Mumbai, Jabalpur, Srinagar and Jaipur which together comprise 17 courts. Each court is held by a judicial member and an administrative member.
