New Delhi: On the eve of the Supreme Court
hearing of his petition on age, Army Chief Gen V K Singh Thursday met Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee who has been informally
acting as a trouble-shooter in the controversy.
Gen Singh, dressed in civil clothes, drove to the North
Block office of Mukherjee in the evening in a private car,
devoid of his security paraphernalia like the escort vehicles.
It was not immediately clear as to what exactly
transpired at the meeting.
Mukherjee has been informally acting as a trouble-shooter
in the controversy on the directions of Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh.
The meeting came a day ahead of consideration by the
Supreme Court of his petition challenging the government's
decision to treat his date of birth as May 10,1950.
He has been maintaining that his date of birth is May 10,
1951.
The Army Chief on January 16 took the unprecedented step
of dragging the government to the Supreme Court.
Making it an issue of his "honour and integrity", Gen
Singh filed a writ petition in the apex court after exhausting
all statutory options within the Defence Ministry which had
recently rejected his contention that he was born in 1951 and
not 1950.
The petition challenges the July 21, 2011 order of the
Defence Ministry which fixed the date of birth as May 10, 1950
and the December 30,2011 decision by which his statutory
complaint was rejected.
He has sought a direction for declaring May 10,1951 as
the correct date of birth.
If May 10, 1950 is treated as his date of birth, Gen Singh
will retire on May 31, otherwise he will get a tenure till
April next year.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, February 02, 2012, 22:27