New Delhi, Sept 25: At least five documents, including one at the time of army chief General V K Singh's commissioning, show his date of birth as May 10, 1950, the Attorney General has told the Defence Ministry following a row over his age.
While the records showed two sets of dates of birth, the Ministry had decided to take May 10, 1950 as against the general's claim that he was born a year later on May 10, 1951, which, if recognised, would have given him an extra ten months in office.
Defence Ministry documents accessed through RTI show that as per a government note dated January 22, 1971, the batch of Singh in the Indian Military Academy (IMA) completed its training on June 6, 1970 and the list prepared showed “the date of birth to be May 10, 1950”.
In his opinion given to the Defence Ministry on army chief's petition to change his date of birth to May 10 1951, the Attorney General has said that, “At least five documents are referred to which show the date of birth as 1950, two of which have emanated from Gen V K Singh himself.”
He further stated that in the army list of 1974-75, the date of birth is showed to be May 10, 1950. On Gen Singh's contention that May 10, 1950 date in his UPSC form was filled up wrongly by his school teacher, the Attorney General said that this, “makes the matter more serious as it shows that the application required to be filled in the candidate's own handwriting was filled in by a teacher and not by Gen Singh.”
The army chief has filed a Statutory Complaint with the Defence Minister seeking a change in his date of birth after the Ministry issued an order on July 21 to say that May 10, 1950 will be treated as his date of birth. PTI
