A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court pleading it to review its verdict dismissing a PIL which had questioned the recruitment policy in Army alleging it to be on the basis of religion, region and caste.
Petitioner I S Yadav, a retired doctor, submitted 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 the 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 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 coming from a region in a regiment for administrative convenience and operational requirements.
In February this year, the apex court dismissed the 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, Gorkha, etc. To which persons from the concerned religion, region or caste only could be recruited.
Yadav had submitted that the Army had violated the fundamental rights of citizens by engaging in such discriminatory classification.
