Bhopal: Army Chief Gen VK Singh, who has approached the Supreme Court for settling his date-of-birth row, has found a supporter in his PhD degree guide who feels that the former is just fighting for his honour.
"As far as I know him, he must have chosen to approach
Supreme Court when all available avenues to settle the row
over his date-of-birth were exhausted just to protect his
honour before the armymen whom he had always led by example,"
Dr Kailash Tyagi told agency.
"It is my personal opinion and is based on the conduct of
the person who is my student....The day the government accepts
his date of birth as May 10, 1951, he will resign from the
post.
"It is a question of honour and not extension," added
Tyagi, who is the Professor and Head of the Military Science
Department of the Motilal Vigyan Mahavidyalaya (MVM).
As per the records available with Tyagi, the date of
birth of the Army Chief is May 10, 1951, which Gen Singh had
submitted before enrolling himself as a research scholar.
Tyagi feels the government has not handled the issue with
the needed sensitivity as it is not a question of any single
individual, but of an institution as honoured as the Chief of
Army Staff (COAS).
Gen Singh is doing his research on the topic 'Security
implications of rise of fundamentalism in Afghanistan: Its
regional and global impact with special focus on Wakhan' from
Barkatullah University, Bhopal under Professor Tyagi.
Gen Singh had earlier this week dragged the government to
the Supreme Court before which he has challenged its decision
over his date of birth that will mean that he retires in May
next.
He has 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.
Gen Singh has sought a direction for declaring May
10,1951 as the correct date of birth.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, January 18, 2012, 18:17