MAJOR GAURAV BHANDARI Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner joined the Army Corps of EME as a Commissioned Officer on 12. 12. 1998. The petitioner after having served the respondents for a period for two and half years, reported to the CME, Pune for undergoing a degree engineering course in October, 2001. There were some interruptions in the course on account of Operation Prakaram. The petitioner completed the course in july, 2006. The petitioner while pursing the course is stated to have got married on 22. 06. 2004 and claims that after marriage, he was having problems on the domestic front on account of psychological differences with his wife, but completed the course despite this fact. The petitioner, prior to completion of his course, submitted an application on 04. 04. 2006 seeking to resign his service. The said application is stated to have been recommended by the appropriate authorities, but the Chief of Army Staff rejected the request vide order dated 18. 09. 2006. It is the plea of the petitioner that such a rejection was without appreciating the scope and ambit of the revised policy dated 22. 11. 2001 of the respondents for premature retirement/resignation.

(2.) THE petitioner aggrieved by the said decision, submitted a statutory complaint to the Union of India, but the same was also rejected by the letter dated 28. 11. 2007. The ground for such rejection was that the petitioner belonged to the technical arm and there was acute shortage of officers in the said department and thus the resignation of the petitioner could not be accepted at that juncture.

(3.) THE petitioner made a renewed request vide application dated 06. 05. 2008 seeking to quit the Army by resigning his commission unconditionally without even terminal benefits. The petitioner filed WP (C)4141/2008 before this Court during the pendency of the application and this Court by an order dated 28. 05. 2008 directed that the petitioner"s application should be disposed of within two months giving him liberty to challenge any adverse decision. The application of the petitioner has been thereafter rejected vide letter dated 25. 07. 2008. It is this decision which the petitioner now seeks to challenge.