Challenge Agnipath scheme before Armed Forces Tribunal: Kerala High Court

The Kerala High Court on Monday declined to entertain a plea challenging the Central government's Agnipath recruitment scheme which proposes to induct youth into the army for four years [Abymonn Varghese & Ors. v Union of India & Ors.]. .A division bench of Justices AK Jayasankaran Nambiar and Mohmmed Nias CP opined that the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) is a more appropriate forum to agitate the matter.The Court noted that the matter had been listed by the High Court Registry as defective and declined to direct the Registry to accept the petition. .The plea was moved by several candidates who had cleared the physical and medical tests for the Indian Army in 2021The petition stated that the petitioners had applied for posts in the Indian Army in 2020 and their physical examination was completed in 2021.It was argued that all the candidates had been NCC cadets holding NCC 'C' Certificates, therefore, exempting them from the Central Entrance Examination for being eligible for appointment to the Indian Army.However, in June 2022, the Agnipath notification was issued by the Ministry of Defence which also mentioned that all pending appointments, including that of the petitioners, stood cancelled. All eligible candidates were required to apply again for recruitment under the scheme.Alleging that their non-selection to the Indian Army was illegal, arbitrary and discriminative, the petition sought directions to the Central government to issue appointment letters to the petitioners..Central Government Counsel Jaishankar V Nair argued against the maintainability of such a petition before the High Court going by the provisions of the Armed Forces Tribunal Act.The Court concurred with this argument and declined to entertain the plea. .Currently, the Supreme Court is seized of a public interest litigation (PIL) petition challenging the constitutional validity of the Agnipath scheme which proposes to induct youth into the army for four years.Another plea has been filed before the top court seeking a probe by a special investigation team (SIT) into the violent protests against the scheme.