BrahMos missile landing in Pakistan: Delhi High Court seeks Central government response on ex-Air Force officer's plea against termination

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Ministry of Defence, Chief of Air Staff and others on a plea by an Air Force officer challenging his termination in the wake accidental launch of BrahMos missile that had ultimately landed in Pakistan in March last year..A division bench of Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Neena Bansal Krishna directed the Central government and others to respond to the plea within six weeks.The petitioner was granted four weeks to file his rejoinder thereafter.On March 9, 2022, a BrahMos missile originating from Sirsa, Haryana had crashed into Mian Channu, Khanewal District of Pakistan's Punjab province. The incident led to a diplomatic row between the two countries. The Ministry of Defence has said that incident was caused due to a technical glitch.The petitioner, ex-Wing Commander Abhinav Sharma was terminated from service after the incident. .Sharma in his plea said that he was terminated from service on August 22, 2022 under Section-18 (doctrine of pleasure) of the Air Force Act, 1950.Sharma submitted that at the time of the incident, he was posted as engineering officer to the squadron and he was imparting professional and practical training only for duties which were purely of maintenance nature.As an engineering officer, he never imparted training on conduct of operations, which was purely the role of commanding officer and Ops officer, it was pointed out. “The petitioner was not trained against the counts of blame apportioned to him in the court of inquiry and he acted in complete obedience of the SOP. The Ppetitioner had no experience in conducting operations and handling operational emergencies and the respondents acted in a completely malafide manner by issuing the termination order,” the petition stated.Sharma further said that by invoking Section 18 of the Air Force Act, the authorities deliberately denied him the opportunity to stand trial by a court marital thereby, depriving him any opportunity to defend himself.“The termination order was not in the nature of a simpliciter withdrawal of pleasure of the petitioner’s appointment/ termination, however, the impugned order approves the counts of blame in the court of inquiry. The Respondents have clearly used Section 18 of the Air Force Act to approve the counts of blame under the Court of Inquiry indirectly, which clearly impermissible under the Air Force Act. As a result, the Respondents have acted beyond the scope of Section 18 of the Air Force Act by issuing the Impugned Termination Order,” he contended.Senior Advocate N Hariharan, appearing for the petitioner, said that the court martial procedure was done away with and Section 18 was used as camouflage.The real picture would have been clear if a trial had taken place, the Senior Counsel said. .Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Chetan Sharma appeared for the Central government and raised a preliminary objection to the maintainability of the petition arguing that the order of dismissal cannot be challenged unless some ground of mala fide is made out.He added that the incident embarrassed the country before the international community and the fact that the missile landed in Pakistan could have led to a situation of war.Sharma further said that the petitioner had come to court eight months after he was dismissed and that similar action was taken against three other officers as well.