Modi govt extends Indian army chief’s service by a month

ISLAMABAD: In a rare and unusual move that comes during the Indian Lok Sabha polls, the Modi government has given a one-month extension in service to incumbent Indian Army Chief Gen Manoj C Pande.

The extension orders were issued on Sunday and say that Pande will remain army chief till June 30 -- he was set to retire on May 31.

Pande became the 29th Indian chief of army staff (COAS) on April 30, 2022. He is the second army chief in Indian history who has been given an extension in service, nearly five decades after the first such extension -- when the Indira Gandhi-led government extended the tenure of Army Chief Gen G G Bewoor by one year in the early 1970s.

According to Indian media reports, the Indian defence ministry said that the Appointments Committee of the Indian cabinet approved the one-month extension in service of Gen Pande, specifying that “the Appointments Committee of Cabinet on May 26 approved the extension in service of Chief of the Army Staff Gen Manoj C Pande for a period of one month, beyond his normal age of superannuation (May 31) that is up to June 30 under Rule 16 A (4) of the Army Rules 1954”.

Lt Gen Upendra Dwivedi, currently serving as India’s vice chief of army staff, is the senior-most official after Gen Pande. The senior-most official after Lt Gen Dwivedi is Lt Gen Ajay Kumar Singh, the Southern Army Commander. Both Lt Gen Dwivedi and Lt Gen Singh are coursemates.

Before assuming the charge of the top post, Gen Pande was serving as the vice chief. He is the first officer from the Corps of Engineers to helm the force. Gen Pande also served as the Andaman and Nicobar Command’s commander-in-chief; this is India’s only tri-services command. An alumnus of the National Defence Academy, Pande was commissioned in the Corps of Engineers (The Bombay Sappers) in December 1982.