The Supreme Court on Friday took strong objection to the way the Defence Ministry had handled Army chief V K Singh's age issue, giving the government another week to explain its stand.
The next hearing is on February 10.
The apex court asked the Attorney General to ask the government on whether it would withdraw a recent order in which the Defence Ministry had rejected the statutory complaint of the Army chief on the age issue. Through this order, the government had fixed his date of birth as May 10, 1950 and not May 10, 1951 as argued by General Singh.
The court questioned the procedure adopted by the government in passing the December 30 order that dismissed General Singh's complaint.
The court said the entire process on deciding the Army chief's age had been vitiated.
General Singh has approached the apex court seeking a direction to the government to declare May 10, 1951, as his date of birth in place of May 10, 1950.
A Bench headed by Justice R M Lodha heard Gen Singh's plea which has accused the government of treating him in a shoddy manner, disregarding 'procedure and principles of natural justice' in deciding his age.
