NEW DELHI: A Haryana-based doctor has filed a curative petition in the SC against its verdict of dismissing a PIL which challenged the recruitment policy in the Army alleging that it was based on religion, region and caste distinctions and was discriminatory. The petitioner, Ishwar Yadav, filed the curative petition after the court rejected his review plea on April 16.
“The corrective power must be exercised so as to correct injustice in a case of unconstitutional method of recruitment of general duty soldiers in the Army,” Yadav said in his petition.
A curative petition is the last judicial resort available to a litigant to get grievances redressed by the court and it is normally decided by judges in chamber. The SC had on April 16, declined to review its order of dismissing the PIL, which had questioned the recruitment policy in the Army alleging that personnel were inducted on the basis of religion, region and caste, and had dismissed the review petition. “We have examined the grounds urged in support of the prayer for review. We find no error apparent on the face of the record to warrant recall of our order dated 11th February, 2014. The review petition is, accordingly, dismissed,” the court said while dismissing the review petition. Yadav had alleged that grouping of people from a particular region in an Army regiment is unconstitutional. He questioned the practice in the Army for having regiments named as Sikh, Maratha, Jat, Rajputana and Gorkha to which only persons from the religion, region or caste concerned could be recruited.