NEW DELHI: A parliamentary committee has asked the Defence Ministry to immediately streamline the selection process to confer gallantry awards to defence personnel, insisting that the exercise must be transparent.
The recommendation by the Committee on Petitions of the Lok Sabha came after an alleged lapse by the then authorities concerned in recognising sacrifices of an armyman during the Indo-Pak war in 1965 was brought to its notice.
In a representation to the panel, the son of late Major Mohan Singh had mentioned that his father died while fighting the enemy during the 1965 war but his sacrifice was not attributed to death in action by the Army, depriving him of the gallantry award.
The parliamentary panel asked the Defence Ministry to undertake a fresh exercise on the basis of available records to determine whether there was any lapse in recognising the “martyrdom” of Singh as ‘battle casualty’ attributable to military service with effect from 1965.
The petitioner, Brigadier (retd) N B Singh has also stated that after almost 50 years, the Army headquarters has acknowledged his father’s sacrifice and “conceded” his death as a ‘Battle Field Casualty’. (AGENCIES)
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