Indian Army’s Proposed Plan To Formulate Code Of Conduct For Retired Officers Draws Flak From Veterans

The Indian Army is mulling on the idea of formulating a code of conduct for retired officers, who have often been critical of the serving top brass of the force for implementing various policies, reports Economic Times.

According to the report, the plan of the Army was made public by its outgoing adjutant Lieutenant General Ashwani Kumar, who retired recently. The Army is reportedly planning to get all serving officers to sign an undertaking to adhere to the code of conduct or ethics after retirement.

The development comes as the Army believes that some of its retired officers “needlessly and irresponsibly attack” it on social media over the policies being implemented by it.

As per the report, the retired officers have often been critical of Army’s top brass for policies ranging from taxing disability pension of soldiers and opening cantonment roads for civilian traffic to enforcing a price cap on cars being bought from subsidised CSD canteens.

“But the code is still at the discussion stage...there is nothing final yet. Moreover, the Navy and IAF will also have to be consulted too,” a senior officer was quoted in the report as saying.

He added that the Army will also take into consideration the views of the veterans once the code of conduct is finalised.

However, the veterans are reportedly not happy with the plan and has voiced their opposition to it.

“The time has probably come for the veterans to draft a code of conduct for the generals in service,” said a retired Army officer.

Brigadier V Mahalingam (retired) tweeted that if the Army was drafting the code, the move was “totally idiotic…”.

“Would they say please surrender your rank on retirement if you do not sign the proposed code? Most would do it for the freedom we all look forward to after decades,” Major General S S Chohan (retd) said.

“They need to understand that Constitution of India is our real code of conduct,” he added.