More than 100 serving officers of the Indian Army have moved the Supreme Court alleging discrimination in their promotions, The Times of India reported on Monday. The petitioners, including officers from the ranks of lieutenant colonels and majors, claimed that personnel of the Army Service Corps were being deployed in operations, but being deprived of the benefits that come with it.
The Army Service Corps handles the military’s logistics support and has nearly 10,000 officers. The petitioners claimed that service corps troopers were being deployed in operations even though they are not supposed to use their arms as they are non-combatants, The New Indian Express reported.
“The action of the Army and the Union government in selectively treating officers of the service corps as ‘operational’ for the purpose of deployment in operational areas, but ‘non-operational’ for the purpose of being considered for promotion is violating the fundamental rights of the petitioners and other middle-level Army officers,” the petition read, according to The Times of India.
They claimed that the Army Service Corps personnel do not hold any immunity under the Geneva Convention. “If caught on foreign soil, [the service corps] shall be tried not as soldiers but under the criminal law of the country,” the petition said.
The plea called for a directive to make the government and the Army stop routinely deploying services corps in any area of operation, “except in circumstances of exigencies”.
In February 2016, the Supreme Court had settled a petition filed by the Army Service Corps, which claimed that there were not enough colonel posts allocated for promotion.
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