A fresh petition has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the Centre’s ‘Agneepath’ scheme for recruitment in the armed forces. The petition, filed by ex-servicemen Ravindra Singh Shekhawat, has sought quashing of the notification issued by the Defense Ministry terming it illegal, unconstitutional and ultra vires the rights guaranteed under the Constitution.
The scheme, which was launched recently, has drawn suspicion from the aspirants of the armed forces across the country and has left many questions unanswered. Some of the concerns are related to the candidates who were in the middle/last stage of their recruitment process. This sudden change in the recruitment process has given rise to many unforeseen circumstances for the candidates and put their future at stake. The petition states that the scheme fails to accommodate the persons who have been preparing for the armed forces for the past several years and have not been able to participate in the recruitment process due to paucity of vacancies due to COVID-19.
The petition states that the scheme jeopardizes the future of the candidates who have already successfully gone through the rigorous selection process of the armed forces, to make these persons a fresh start for the selection process under the Agneepath scheme. force. Since there is no assurance for these candidates to get the recruitment in the Armed Forces for which they are already qualified, the time devoted for preparation by these candidates has gone down the drain.
The petition, filed through advocate Rohit Pandey, states that there is no assurance that these persons will qualify for the Agneepath scheme and despite years of hard work and qualifying for the examination, these candidates will not get any meaningful results. Objective not found. The petition has also sought a direction to constitute a committee consisting of ex-servicemen, chiefs of all armed forces and other appropriate persons to look into the proposed scheme.
It has also sought directions for undertaking a ‘pilot project’ to study the cause and effect of the Agneepath scheme, and the impact of the newly introduced training process on combat effectiveness, operational preparedness and defense preparedness. . Several petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court against this scheme.
The Agneepath scheme, announced on June 14, has a provision to recruit youth in the age group of 17-and-a-half to 21 years only for four years, of which 25 per cent is to be retained for 15 more years. Protests have started in many states against this scheme. Later, the government increased the upper age limit for recruitment to 23 years in 2022.
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