Fauji Beat:
DURING the British regime, the Commander-in-Chief was number two in the warrant of precedence. After Independence, his status continued to fall and today the service chiefs are at the 13th position and equivalent in status to the cabinet secretary. Even this downgraded status of the service chiefs is irking politicians and bureaucrats.
Recently, the parliamentary standing committee on defence had recommended that the defence secretary, who is one step lower than the service chiefs, should be upgraded to the rank of cabinet secretary so that he is no longer lower than the chiefs in the warrant of precedence. The political hierarchy also wants that the service chiefs should attend meetings convened by the defence secretary. It has also been recommended by the parliamentary committee that the defence secretary’s functional status should be raised to the level of “principal defence adviser”.
Since Partition of the country, status of the defence officers has kept on plummeting while the bureaucrats have been rising to the higher rungs in the precedence. This game is part of the ongoing exercise to reduce the “importance” of the Army, if any left.
Source:-TNS