Army authorities remit imprisonment to 9 clerks

The army authorities have remitted the rigorous imprisonment awarded to nine clerks who had refused to report for arms' cleaning parade at Patiala recently without citing any reasons.

As many as 10 clerks were dismissed from the service, reduced in ranks and sentenced to three to six months of rigorous imprisonment. But only one clerk had not been extended the benefit of remission.

"But the order of dismissal and reduction in ranks would continue," explained Rajeev Anand, counsel of one of the clerks.

The clerks were charged under section 39 (d) of the ArmyAct for failing to appear, without sufficient cause, for central arms' cleaning parade on October 25, 2012, section 66 for instigating others to remain absent from the parade, section 39 (a) for absenting themselves without leave and section 63 for act prejudicial to good order and military discipline.

Alleging that they were mistreated on October 25, 2012, they all then left for Regimental Centre at Ahmednagar in Maharashtra from Patiala.

But the unit informed the regimental centre that the soldiers were being retained in unauthorised manner. After that they were sent again to Patiala.

The clerks who faced axe included Jagbandhu Das, Ramdas Aware, Dinesh Kumar Shukla, Asabe Ballal, Pankaj Kumar Thakur, Sandeep Kumar, Suresh Kumar Bhuyan, Ramnendra Singh, Santosh Rathod and Rahul Sharma.

Maj Gen AK Pant, General Officer Commanding, 1 Armoured Division, Patiala, has remitted the unexpired portion of sentence of rigorous imprisonment of all except Ramdas Aware.