Delhi High Court’s stand on petition by former Air Force Officer
Delhi High Court’s stand on petition by former Air Force Officer. On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court sought the Centre’s stand on a petition by a former Air Force officer. This petition involved the dismissal of the officer over the accidental firing of Brahmos missile into Pakistan. This accident took place during a simulation exercise last year. A bench of Justices including Suresh Kumar Kait and even Neena Bansal Krishna, was in charge of managing this task. They issued a notice on the petition put forward by the former wing commander. The Air Force personnel also mentioned that he was posted as Engineering Officer at that time. The bench of Justices granted the Centre with six weeks to respond to the matter.
Main focus of the petition
The petitioner disapproved of the decision made by the Ministry of Defense to terminate him. They felt that it was not needed as he had just acted in “complete obedience of the SOP”. The Additional Solicitor General, Chetan Sharma, was opposed to the plea and said that termination of the officer cannot happen in present circumstances. In his plea, the Officer has submitted that he was trained for the duties which were only for the purpose of “maintenance nature” and never on the conduct of operations. He asserted he was “not trained against the counts of blame apportioned to him in the Court of Inquiry”.
The petition read, “The Petitioner performed all his duties as per the SOP dated 15.03.2021. A perusal of the said SOP, which governed the operations on the fateful day would demonstrate that the Impugned Termination Order is malafide and the counts of blame levelled against the Petitioner bear no nexus with his responsibility as per his role prescribed by the SOP. The cause of the unfortunate incident was solely operational in nature,”.
Due to this incident, Pakistan had summoned India’s Charge d’Affaires in Islamabad to convey the message that the Country was not happy with the uninformed violation of its airspace. For more such updates and important headlines, subscribe to STMN News. Maharashtra Government offers subsidy to farmers producing onions