NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday quashed appointment of Lt General Sanjiv Chopra as Director General of Medical Services (Army) and hoped that a fresh decision on appointment to the post will be done in a week by defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman .

This verdict was delivered by a bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan, which partially upheld the Armed Forces Tribunal’s decision to quash appointment of Lt Gen Chopra on a petition filed by Maj Gen Manomoy Ganguly. However, the bench did not agree with the AFT’s direction to the Union government to appoint Maj Gen Ganguly as DGMS.

Rejecting attorney general K K Venugopal’s argument that the AFT erred in misconstruing the selection process for DGMS post, the bench criticised the Army for denying promotion of Maj Gen Ganguly to the post of Lt General. Writing the judgment for the bench, Justice Sikri said, “There has been some attempt (though we are not suggesting as to whether it was deliberate or bona fide) in denying Maj Gen Ganguly his claim for promotion to the rank of Lt General.” Referring to the manner in which a note was written regarding seniority of officers in the zone of consideration, the bench said it “leaves a reasonable impression that the exercise was done to exclude Maj General Ganguly from appointment to the post of DGMS (Army)”.

“We agree with the ultimate conclusion of the AFT that appointment of Lt. General Sanjiv Chopra to the post of DGMS (Army) warrants to be quashed,” the bench said but was cautious to note that appointment of Maj General Ganguly to the post straightaway would not be proper.

Setting aside the AFT direction, the bench said: “While setting aside this direction, we remit the case back to the Raksha Mantri...” “Keeping in view that the post is lying vacant for some time..., we direct the Union government to place the matter before the Raksha Mantri...,” it said.

