V K Singh slams next Indian Army Chief of protecting killers, dacoits

Minister of State and former Army Chief, V K Singh mounted a scathing attack on the new Army Chief Designate, Lt. General Dalbir Singh, and accused him of trying to protect a unit that kills innocents and does dacoity.

V K Singh’s comments came a day after Dalbir Singh Attacked him by terming his last few actions as Army Chief against Lt Gen Dalbir Singh as “illegal”, “extraneous” and “premeditated.”

Lt. General Dalbir Singh has been approved by the Defence Minister, Arun Jaitley, to take over as the new Army Chief on 31st July. On Tuesday, V K Singh took to Twitter to express his anger and frustration, “If unit kills innocents, does dacoity and then head of organization tries to protect them, should he not be blamed? Criminals should go free!!”

V K Singh is a Minister of State with Development of North Eastern Region (independent charge), External Affairs and Overseas Indian Affairs as his portfolios.

Taking charge last month, Arun Jaitley had said that there was no objection of the BJP on the officer stated to be the chief. Jaitle however, further added that the only objection had been on the propriety of rushing through with the appointment but this was, in no way, meant to reflect on the person (Dalbir Singh) under consideration.

V K Singh’s attack came, even in wake of the Congress party asking for his resignation arguing that the NDA government’s affidavit in the Supreme Court on the issue of Dalbir Singh Suhag’s promotion as Army commander was a “direct vote of no confidence” against him.

Moreover, in his affidavit to the Supreme Court on Monday, the Ministry of Defence had defended Dalbir Singh Suhag’s promotion and described the disciplinary ban on him by Singh as Army chief as “illegal”, “extraneous” and “premeditated”.

The affidavit also said that the disciplinary proceedings against Suhag between April and May 2012 by Singh was “without any basis or material on record”. Moreover, The Information and Broadcasting Minister, Prakash Javadekar, had declined to comment over Singh’s remarks against the Army Chief Designate.

During his last few days in office as the Army Chief, in May 2012, General V K Singh had effectively tried to block the appointment of Suhag as the Eastern Army Commander, which would have put him out of contention for the top post.

V K Singh also went on to issue a showcause notice accusing that Lt Gen Dalbir Singh, then 3 Corps Commander, had not taken action against an intelligence unit that allegedly conducted an illegal raid in Jorhat in December 2011 in which items were reportedly stolen from the house of a contractor. However, the notice had been withdrawn by the authorities as soon as V K Singh retired.