S P S RAJKUMAR Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner in the present case who was, at the material time, working as Group Captain with Indian Air Force has filed this Writ Petition with the following prayers:-

(2.) Although the vires of certain Sections of the Air Force Act, 1950 (hereinafter referred to as Act, for short) is challenged, this relief was not pressed at the time of arguments. Learned counsel confined his challenge to the sentence of dismissal imposed upon the petitioner after conducting General Court Martial (GCM) holding him guilty of certain charges levelled against him.

(3.) In fact it may be noted at this stage itself, the main ground of challenge was that the Judge Advocate who conducted the proceedings on behalf of the Air Force Authorities before the GCM was lower in rank than the petitioner and therefore the entire proceedings were illegal and contrary to Sections 65 and 159 of the Act. His submission was that this issue is no more res Integra and is squarely covered by recent decision of the Apex Court in the matter of Union of India and another versus Chiranjit S. Gill reported in JT 2000 (5) SC 135. This was the sole ground argued before us and in that view of the matter it may not be necessary to state the facts of the case in great detail.