Army chief withdraws case against Govt. in Supreme Court on age row (Update)

New Delhi, Feb 10 (ANI): Chief of Army Staff, General V.K. Singh, on Friday withdrew his case against the government placed before the Supreme Court on the issue of his date of birth.

The apex court had earlier in the day disposed General Singh's petition, saying he could not resile on his commitment of accepting the date of birth as May 10, 1950.

The two-judge bench of the apex court said it was not in favour of entertaining General Singh's petition that his date of birth should be treated in official records as May 10, 1951 and gave him the option of withdrawing it.

The apex court held that no prejudice had been done to the army chief and added that the government decision on his date of birth would stand.

General Singh will now retire on May 31 this year as scheduled.

The apex court had earlier stated that there was no scope for it to interfere in the matter.

The government also withdrew its December 30, 2011 order that had rejected the army chief's statutory complaint for treating his date of birth as May 10, 1951 instead of May 10, 1950.

The government's decision followed a Supreme Court order that said the December 30 order was vitiated and against the principle of natural justice, and would be quashed if not done.

Attorney General G E Vahanvati, however, made it clear that the government was sticking to its July 21 and July 22 orders of last year turning down General Singh's plea on the age row.

General Singh had earlier placed additional documents before the Supreme Court to support his case for restoring his date of birth to May 10, 1951. he documents that were filed on Wednesday relate to army rules on the commissioning of the officers.

The Supreme Court had earlier on February 3 deferred the hearing of the case by a week.

General Singh questioned the government's decision to treat his date of birth as May 10, 1950 instead of May 10, 1951, as claimed by him on the basis of his matriculation certificate and other documents, in his writ petition filed before the apex court. (ANI)