Legal experts conversant with the issue said that there have been numerous instances where officers have retired from service while awaiting their promotion board results that were inordinately delayed.

The Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) has stayed the retirement of a Brigadier whose selection board for the rank of Major General was conducted by the Army in July but the result could not be released before his superannuation on September 30.

Acting on the petition of Brig IM Lamba of Artillery, a bench of Justice Sunita Gupta and Lt Gen Phillip Campose, stayed his retirement till the time the result of his promotion board is not declassified. If he is approved for promotion, then he would be promoted to the rank of Major General. In case his promotion is not approved, then he would be deemed to have retired on September 30, 2019 and will return any pay and allowances that may have been paid to him for the period thereafter.

The Brigadier had moved the AFT aggrieved by the fact that the results of the selection board in the Artillery Stream, which was conducted in July this year, in which he was considered as a ‘First Review’ case, has not been pronounced as yet. He feared that, in case he had been approved for promotion in the said selection board, he will not be promoted due to the fact that he would have superannuated on September 30 despite being fully qualified for promotion.

The officer contended that, in such an eventuality, it would be a travesty of justice.