Fresh plea in Supreme Court against Centre's Agnipath
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New Delhi: A new petition has been filed in the Supreme Court against the Agnipath scheme, which sought quashing of the Centre's notification regarding the scheme. The petition contended that the scheme for recruitment in the armed forces is illegal, unconstitutional, and an act beyond the rights guaranteed by the Constitution, PTI reported.
The plea filed by ex-servicemen Ravindra Singh Shekhawat said, "The recently launched scheme has received scepticism nationwide from the armed forces aspirants and has left several questions unanswered. Some of the concerns are related to the aspirants who were in the middle/final stages of their recruitment process."
"This abrupt change in the recruitment process has evoked several unforeseeable circumstances for the aspirants and has put their futures at stake/in the dark. The scheme fails to accommodate the individuals who have been preparing for the armed forces for the last many years and have not been able to participate in the recruitment process due to lack of vacancies due to Covid-19," it said.
The plea further argued that the scheme destroys the future of aspirants, who already went through a rigorous selection process if they are compelled to go through it again under the new scheme.
The plea, filed through advocate Rohit Pandey said, "As there is no assurance for these candidates to receive recruitment in the armed forces for which they have already qualified, the time devoted by these candidates for the preparation has gone down the drain."
"There is no assurance if these individuals will qualify for the Agnipath scheme and despite years of hard work and qualifying for the exam, no fruitful purpose has been served to these candidates."
Further, the plea sought the court to direct the formation of a committee of veterans, the chiefs of all armed forces and other appropriate persons to look into the Agnitoath scheme. Also, SC was requested to give direction to a 'Pilot Project' to study the cause and effect of this scheme and the impact of the newly introduced training process on combat effectiveness, operational readiness, and defence preparedness.
Petitions are already there, filed in the top court against the Centre's new scheme. Agnipath was announced on June 14, aiming to recruit youths between the age of 17-and-a-half and 21 for only four years with a provision to retain 25 per cent of them for 15 more years. Protests have erupted in several states against the scheme. Later, the government extended the upper age limit to 23 years for recruitment in 2022.