UNION OF INDIA Vs. LT. COL. KULDEEP YADAV

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Admit.

(2.) The moot question involved in this appeal is: whether the Armed Forces Tribunal despite noting that the punishment of censure awarded by the competent authority cannot be faulted, ought to have interfered on the specious ground that "Severe Displeasure (Recordable)" was not commensurate and excessive in the facts of the present case; and to direct the competent authority to award censure other than "Severe Displeasure (Recordable)", merely because censure can also be of Severe Displeasure (Non-Recordable) or mere Displeasure, as the case may be? The incidental question is: whether this approach, inevitably, entails in sitting over the subjective satisfaction of the competent authority in the matter of awarding punishment?

(3.) The respondent was commissioned in the Army Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineering (EME) on 6th December, 1997. He was posted to UNDOF, Golan Heights as Transport Officer w.e.f. 5th July, 2008 to 4th July, 2009. In January 2009, or around that time, he came in contact with a foreign national Miss De Oliviera Sueli Montilha (in short Ms. Sueli) of Brazil, who was working with Nazha and Darwish a sub-contractor company for United Nations in Syria. While posted at UNDOF, the work place of the respondent was Headquarters Counter Insurgency Force (U) (HQ CIF (U)) w.e.f. 5th July, 2009 as AQMG. He was then detailed for Officers Advance Computer Technical (OACT) course Serial No.20 at Military College of Electronics and Mechanical Engineering (MCEME), Secunderabad w.e.f. 4th June, 2011 to 23rd March, 2012.