BrahMos missile landing in Pakistan: Notice to Centre on plea by terminated officer

The Centre has contended that the BrahMos missile landing in Pakistan could have led to a situation of war.

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Ministry of Defence, Chief of Air Staff among others on a plea by an Air Force officer who challenged his termination in the wake of the accidental launch of BrahMos missile which landed in Pakistan last year.

A Division Bench comprising Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Neena Bansal Krishna issued notices to the Centre and other parties returnable by six weeks.

The petitioner on the other hand was granted four weeks to file his rejoinder thereafter.

On March 9 2022, a BrahMos missile originating fro Sirsa in Haryana crashed into Main Channu Khanewal district in Pakistan's Punjab province. The incident escalated into a diplomatic row between the two countries. The Defence Ministry said that the incident was caused due to a technical glitch.

Following the incident, the petitioner, ex-wing Wing Commander was terminated from service.

Sharma said in his plea that he was terminated from service on August 22, 2022 under Section-18 (doctrine of pleasure) of the Air Force Act of 1950.

He also submitted that as an engineering offer, he never imparted training on the conduct of operations, which was purely the role of the commanding officer and Ips officer.

"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 petitioner said.

Sharma also said by invoking Section 18 of the Air Force Act, the authorities deliberately denied him the opportunity to stand trial by a court martial thereby, denying him the 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," Sharma contended through his counsel.

Appearing for the petitioner, Senior Advocate, N Hariharan said that the court martial procedure was done away with and Section 18 was used as a camouflage.

The real picture would have been clear had a trial taken place, Hariharan contended.

Additional Solicitor General, Chetan Sharma appearing for the Central Government raised a preliminary objection to the maintainability of the petition. He argued that the order of dismissal cannot be challenged unless some malafide ground is made out.

Chetan Sharma and also said that incident embarrassed the country before the international community. The fact that the missile landed in Pakistan could have led to a situation of war, he added.