Last month, the Supreme Court made the Delhi High Court the main forum to examine the question of the validity of the Agneepath recruitment scheme for the armed forces.
Last month, the Supreme Court made the Delhi High Court the main forum to examine the question of the validity of the Agneepath recruitment scheme for the armed forces.
The Delhi High Court had refused to stay on August 24 Agneepath Scheme for recruitment in the Armed Forces while hearing petitions challenging the scheme.
A division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramaniam Prasad asked the Center to give a consolidated reply on the petitions and posted the matter for further hearing on October 19.
Read also: explained | Agneepath Scheme for Armed Forces
Last month, the Supreme Court made the Delhi High Court the main forum to examine the question of the validity of the Agneepath recruitment scheme to the armed forces, observing that several litigation over the Agneepath scheme is “neither desirable nor justified”.
The apex court had noted that the petitions, either challenging Agneepath or seeking directions to the Center and the armed forces to complete hiring process The schemes were launched before, were pending in various High Courts.
Apart from the Delhi High Court, petitions at Agneepath are also pending in the High Courts of Kerala, Patna, Punjab and Haryana, Uttarakhand and even the Armed Forces Tribunal in Kochi.
The top court had said that other high courts can either transfer their cases to Delhi with the permission of the petitioners or keep those petitions pending there and allow the petitioners to interfere in the proceedings of Delhi. The same action can be taken by the High Courts in future in the case of petitions challenging Agneepath.
The High Court has seized several petitions seeking a direction to the armed forces to resume the recruitment process that was canceled due to the introduction of the Agneepath scheme. In one of these petitions, over 20 candidates selected for the position of ‘Airmen’, following the 2020 recruitment process initiated by the Indian Air Force (IAF), have urged the government to publish the nomination list.
Another petition was filed by a candidate Rahul, who had applied for Soldier General Duty in the Army Recruitment Rally in Sirsa in 2020. The petition states that the recruitment process was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic after the Army conducted physical and medical examination in 2021. And it was postponed from time to time.
Rahul, in his plea filed through advocate Vijay Ahlawat, said that after the announcement of the Agneepath scheme for armed forces recruitment, the Center has put on hold all pending processes, including the Common Entrance Test (CEE) of Indian Army recruitment for the previous recruitment. and cancelled. years.
In the top court, advocate ML Sharma had challenged the Agneepath scheme on the ground that the scheme would cause “grave injury” to civilians, the institution of the armed forces and the country as a whole.
Mr Sharma had argued that the armed forces cannot discriminate against a policy that leaves 75% of those inducted after four years of service without pension.
Another petition before the apex court, filed by advocate Harsh Ajay Singh, argued that a tenure of only four years would not prepare young men and women to face a competitive world outside the armed forces, both personally and professionally.
Other petitions complained about how the ongoing recruitment process in the armed forces got derailed with the announcement of the Agneepath scheme. In some cases, candidates had successfully completed their tests and were waiting for their appointment letters before they hit Agneepath.