Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: Under extreme pressure from the government and media to take action against officials embroiled in the Sukhna land scam, Army chief Deepak Kapoor on Thursday vaguely hinted that action would soon be taken against the offenders.
''The Army has a history of taking expeditious action against such cases and I have already issued a set of directions,” he said.
"We will take due action as per the rules in the Army
Act," he said.
“I have received inputs and legal advice and after due deliberation and analysis of the case a set of directions have been issued. As the disciplinary proceedings are on, I cannot comment on the details of the case. But let me assure you that any aberration will be dealt with firmly. We will take due action against the offenders as per the Army Act,” he added.
Spelling out his stand on the Sukhna scam, he added,” My responsibility is to dispense justice and it will be fair, just and fact based.”
Although General Kapoor assured action against the guilty officials yet he sounded evasive and unclear. He failed to set a time frame for action and did not spell out the details of the land scam. He was also unable to say anything on the disciplinary action against the guilty generals.
The press conference seemed a mere act to pacify media.
Pressure on the Army to sack officials embroiled in a land scam increased last week as Indian Army chief Deepak Kapoor met with the union Defence Minister AK Antony.
Antony was believed to have asked Kapoor to act on the Court of Inquiry (COI) report on a land scam in Sukhna cantonment in West Bengal.
The report recommended “termination of service” of Lt. Gen. Avadhesh Prakash, the Military Secretary at Army HQ and the initiation of court martial proceedings against Lt. Gen. P.K. Rath, whose appointment as deputy chief of army staff has been scrapped by the Defence Ministry.
Earlier, the Army court had indicted the two officers for their role in issuing a no-objection certificate to a private establishment that falsely claimed to be establishing an affiliate of the well known Ajmer-based Mayo College on land adjacent to the Sukhna military station in Darjeeling district.
The CoI had also reported to have recommended administrative action against another lieutenant general and disciplinary action and court martial against a major general.
Prakash is one of the eight Principal Staff Officers (PSOs) at Army HQ who act as advisors to the army chief. As Military Secretary, he is responsible for the promotions and postings of officers.
P.K. Rath was commander of the Sukhna-based 33 Corps when the alleged land scam took place.
No Indian land lost to China
Kapoor today insisted that no part of Indian land had been lost to
China and the "established" Line of Actual Control was
unchanged.
"Let me assure you and the nation that no border has
shrunk anywhere (with China). As far as our position goes,
there is no change in the established demarcated Line (of
Actual Control)," he said.
Kapoor was reacting suo motu to reports, which cited
official documents saying the area along the LAC had "shrunk"
in Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir as India had lost
"substantial" amount of land in the last two decades or more.
‘Govt trying to reduce red-tapism in procuring equipment’
Facing long delays in procurement of equipment, Kapoor today said the Defence Ministry was trying to "cut down red tapism and delays" to speed up the acquisition process.
"We all are trying to cut down red tapism and the delays
so that the acquisition process can be sped up," he said.
‘80% Army tanks night blind’
Admitting that about 80 per cent
of India's battle tanks were "night blind", Kapoor also said the process to provide night vision
capabilities to the tanks for warfare after dark was in
progress.
"Yes, you are right. One of the major area of my concerns
is to remove the night blindness of the tanks so that we are
able to effectively fight in the night as we are able to do in
the day," Kapoor told reporters.
"There are projects already in the pipeline for ensuring
the kind of night vision capability that some of our
adversaries have. It takes at least three to four years and
some of the projects are likely to fructify in the next year
or so," he added.
-PTI inputs
First Published: Friday, January 15, 2010, 00:35