In the wake of the setback to the government after the observations of the Supreme Court on the Army Chief’s date of birth (DoB) issue, defence minister A.K. Antony met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday evening in a meeting where the issue is understood to have come up for discussions, sources said.

After the Supreme Court observed that the order of the ministry of defence (MoD) — rejecting the statutory complaint of Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) Gen. V.K. Singh — had a “material legal flaw”, the government is likely to withdraw the order. The withdrawal of the order — that had been issued by the government on December 30, 2011 — seems almost certain since the Supreme Court observed that the order would be struck down if the government did not withdraw it.
The government now is clearly on the backfoot on the matter, sparking speculation of renewed efforts to arrive at a compromise with the CoAS. Another option for the Government is to battle it out with the CoAS in the court, since conceding completely to the CoAS on the matter could lead to the government losing face publicly.
The Supreme Court had pointed out that the flaw in the order was that it had been issued on the “repeated” legal advice of Attorney-General G.E. Vahanvati. In fact, Mr Antony had relied heavily on the advice of the Attorney-General in the matter on the grounds that the Attorney-General is the highest-ranking law officer.
Mr Antony had also made it clear previously that the MoD went by the advice of the Attorney general in the matter. The MoD, later in the day, did not react to the Supreme Court’s observations, on the grounds that “the matter is subjudice”.
But the Supreme Court’s observations have come as a huge boost to CoAS Gen. V.K. Singh who had earlier petitioned the Supreme Court against the rejection of his statutory complaint by the government. The CoAS says his DoB is May 10, 1951, while the government maintains the DoB in official records as May 10, 1950. Any withdrawal of the December 30 order by the government is again expected to be a huge boost for the CoAS. The Adjutant General Branch of the Army has also been reluctant earlier to make any change.