Withdrawal of Oct?16 contentious letter
In October 2016, a letter was passed by the Defence ministry which lowered the functional
equivalence of armed forces personnel with respect to their civilian counterparts. It equated
a civilian principal director, considered the equivalent of a brigadier, to a two-star general, a
director-ranked officer to a brigadier, and a joint director to a colonel. Before the letter was
issued, a colonel was equivalent to a director and a lieutenant colonel to a joint director.
It caused severe disgruntlement among the services and prompted the government to
appoint a committee to give recommendations on the issue. Following protests from the
armed forces, the Defence Ministry had constituted a three-member committee to look into
the issue but the report was never submitted to the Ministry due to which the issue then went
up to the Defence Minister for a resolution.
But several serving officers said the orders mentioned in the letter were only for internal
cadre management and had been misinterpreted to the disadvantage of the armed forces.
But due to high unrest the defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman passed orders on Friday I.e.
5th January 2017 withdrawing an October 2016 letter that allegedly downgraded the status
of military officers compared to their civilian counterparts, in an attempt to put the resulting
controversy to rest.
?So far as the channel of reporting/rendition of Annual Performance Appraisal Report(APAR) is concerned, status quo ante is hereby restored, i.e., the position which existedprior to the issue of MoD letter dated October 18, 2016 shall prevail,? the statement noted.
Describing the Friday order as positive, a senior army officer said on condition of anonymity
that ?the ministry must ensure no back door entry to create abnormal cadre equivalence in
the future.?
Local designations assigned to both service and civilian officers in service headquarters/
Inter Service Organisations (ISOs) is hereby withdrawn. Both service and civilian officers will
use their respective cadre designations only,? the statement added.
