SC refuses to relook its verdict on Army recruitment policy

The Supreme Court has declined to review its order dismissing a PIL which had questioned the recruitment policy in Army alleging it to be on the basis of religion, region and caste.
A bench headed by Justice T S Thakur dismissed the review petition filed against its verdict by which it had refused to go into the issue of recruitment policy in Army.
"We have examined the grounds urged in support of the prayer for review. We find no error apparent on the face of the record to warrant recall of our order dated 11th February, 2014. The review petition is, accordingly, dismissed," the bench said.

The court passed the order on a review petition filed by I S Yadav, a retired doctor, who had submitted in his petition that the apex court had not taken vital view of the response of the Army in which it had virtually admitted that the recruitment is done on basis of caste, religion and region.
Grouping of people from a particular region in an Army regiment is unconstitutional and amounts to discrimination on caste, region and religion basis, the petitioner had said.
The Army in its response to the earlier petition on the same had told the Supreme Court that it does not recruit on the basis of caste, region and religion but justified grouping of people from a region in a regiment for administrative convenience and operational requirements.

The apex court had dismissed Yadav's PIL saying, "We do not want to rock the Army's boat."
The court had entertained the earlier petition in December, 2012 and sought response from Centre and Army on the practice of having Army regiments such as Sikh, Maratha, Jat, Rajputana and Gorkha to which only persons from the religion, region or caste concerned could be recruited.
Yadav had submitted that the Army had violated fundamental rights of citizens by engaging in such discriminatory classification.