This Article is From Apr 14, 2011

Army Chief proves he's younger than believed

New Delhi: It turns out that the man who heads the Indian Army is a year younger than many believed - or wanted him to be.

General VK Singh has been arguing that he is 60 - which means he can stay in office till 2013. The Law Ministry, after studying documents, has agreed that General Singh was born in 1951 and that the confusion arose from a form he filled when he was 15 years old. The clerk handling his papers for the UPSC exams listed the teenage Singh as 16 instead of 15.

The Defence Ministry now has to decide if this means that General Singh will retire in 2013. That could upset the plans of several other senior Army officers.

Lieutenant General Bikram Singh, largely tipped to succeed General Singh as the next Army Chief, may be ruled out of contention - because by 2013, he will have hit retirement age.

And in that case, Lieutenant General KT Parnaik, currently Northern Army Commander, may find himself at the head of the line of candidates for the next Army Chief.

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