The army has let off its 73 officers illegally selling theirweapons in Rajasthan with either a reprimand or a token fine of Rs 500 despitethe Rajasthan government telling the Supreme Court on Monday that the gunselling racket of the Army personnel extends to other parts of the country.
In an affidavit on the 14 cases probed by itsAnti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), the Rajasthan government has disclosed that itdiscovered 304 more cases of such sales, 104 in Jammu and Kashmir and 41 inPunjab. The ACB has written twice to the district collectors for verification,but no replies were yet received, the affidavit said.
This affidavit, pointing out that the probe has to beextended to the Army companies in other states, prompted the court to post thematter after four weeks, not allowing the army to put the lid on the wrongscommitted by the men in uniform.
Though the affidavit claimed that charge-sheets were alreadyfiled in six of the 14 cases the ACB probed, it was silent on the action takenagainst the IAS and Rajasthan Administrative Services (RAS) officers.
No civilian can possess a firearm without first procuring alicence and has to sell it to only those having such a licence, but the armypersonnel did not bother even about the army order that prohibits them fromselling the non-service pattern (NSP) weapons without prior approval from thearmy's gun licence issuing authority.
As many as 73 army officers in the ranks of colonel,lieutenant colonel and major, found guilty of violating the army order were letoff with censure or fine. The defence ministry is trying to make out a casethat the army issues licences to its personnel and hence they are not guilty ofillegal possession of weapons.
Their only crime is that they transferred the weaponswithout authorisation which in the eyes of the defence ministry is no bigcrime. Three officers accused of selling more than one weapon -- Lt Col V SRathore who sold 17 weapons, Lt Col B S Shekhawat (11) and Col Neeraj Rana (5)were let off with “severe reprimand” and forfeiture of service and relatedbenefits for three, two and one year respectively.
Dealing with other officers accused of sale of theirpersonal NSP weapons in open market, 26 were reprimanded and fined Rs 500 eachwhile 11 others who retried the weapons sold were let off with “severedispleasure” by the court martial.
