Govt Changes Rules To Appoint Chief Of Defence Staff

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What has happened?

The Defence Ministry issued new guidelines broadening the scope of eligible officers for the post of the Chief Of Defence Staff (CDS) of the Indian armed forces.
Any serving or retired Lieutenant General, Air Marshal and Vice Admiral under the age of 62 years will be eligible for the post of Chief of Defence Staff.

This essentially opens the doors for the second-highest active rank officers of the tri-services to possibly supersede their seniors –
The chief of the army, air force, or navy — to take on the role and widens the pool from which a CDS can be appointed.
General Bipin Rawat had retired as Army Chief and was then elevated to the post of India’s first CDS on January 1, 2020.
He was, therefore, older than the service Chiefs and outranked them when he was appointed CDS.
Another change in eligibility criteria is that recently retired service chiefs and vice chiefs will also be eligible for the post, though there’s an age ceiling of 62 years.

The government has issued separate notifications on Monday as part of the Air Force Act, the Army Act and the Navy Act to make the provisions to make any serving or retired Lt General, Air Marshal or Vice Admiral eligible to be appointed as the CDS.
“The Central Government may, if considered necessary, in the public interest, so to do, appoint as Chief of Defence Staff, an officer who is serving as Air Marshal or Air Chief Marshal or an officer who has retired in the rank of Air Marshal or Air Chief Marshal but has not attained the age of 62 years on the date of his appointment,” the notification issued under the Air Force Act 1950

Identical notifications were issued under the Army Act 1950 and the Navy Act 1957.

The tenure of three service chiefs is three years of service or when they turn 62, whichever is earlier.
It further said that the government may extend the service of the Chief of Defence Staff for such a period as it may deem necessary subject to a maximum age of 65 years.

The move paves the way for India to have a new CDS after General Bipin Rawat, India’s first Chief of Defence Staff, and his wife died on December 8 last year after a military chopper crashed in Tamil Nadu, killing over a dozen on board.
India has been without a CDS since then.
The CDS is appointed as the Secretary of the Department of Military Affairs which functions at present under an Additional Secretary-rank Lieutenant General.

The CDS is also the head of the Integrated Defence Staff presently headed by a three-star officer from the Indian Air Force.
A high-level committee set up to examine the gaps in India’s security system in the wake of the Kargil war in 1999 had recommended the appointment of the CDS as a single-point military adviser to the defence minister.
The government has also made the CDS in-charge of the ‘Make in India’ in defence programme and has been given the mandate of promoting and ensuring the Aatmanirbhar Bharat scheme in the defence sector.
The CDS is also the single point of contact for the government for giving military advice and is the senior-most bureaucrat in the defence ministry.

Rawat was working towards bringing evolving consensus between the three Services on integrated theatre commands, which would be the biggest reorganisation of the Indian
armed forces since Independence.
While Gen. Rawat had set out an ambitious plan for the roll out of the theatre commands, the process was delayed due to differences among the Services and objections on some aspects from the Indian Air Force.
Detailed studies have already been carried out, and table top wargaming executed in the recent past to fine tune the modalities.
Additional studies were recently ordered by Gen. Rawat in this direction.
The task now falls on the next CDS to build consensus and take the reorganisation process forward.