IN THE HIGH Court OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH

204 Date of Decision: 12.09.2025 COLONEL JAGPREET SINGH BAKSHI AND ANR ...Petitioners Versus UNION OF INDIA AND OTHERS ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE HARSIMRAN SINGH SETHI HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE VIKAS SURI Present: Mr. Navdeep Singh, Advocate, Mr. Rajesh Sehgal, Advocate and Mr. Arun Singla, Advocate, for the petitioners.

Mr. Rohit Verma, Senior Panel Counsel, assisted by Major Partho Katyayan, for the respondents.

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HARSIMRAN SINGH SETHI , J. (ORAL)

1. In the present Criminal Writ petition, the challenge is to the order dated 07.05.2025 (Annexure P-12) passed by the learned Armed Forces Tribunal, Chandigarh Bench, Chandigarh (hereinafter referred to as ‘Tribunal’), by which the plea raised by the petitioners before the Tribunal that the initiation of the Court Martial proceedings against them is time barred keeping in view the Section 122 of the Army Act 1950, has been rejected, which is causing them prejudice.

2. It may be noticed that certain facts need to be mentioned hereinafter for the correct appreciation of the issue in hand.

2.1 Petitioners, while posted at Jalandhar, were entrusted with execution of the operational works of construction of Integrated Security Fence and construction of the Hybrid Fence of the Jalandhar Cantonment during the period 2018-2019, for which certain quotations were asked from the vendors. After receiving the quotations, the work of fencing of the Jalandhar Cantonment was awarded for execution to the bidders in accordance with the rates submitted by them. After the deposit of the amount by the Army authority with the vendors qua execution of the work mentioned hereinbefore, certain complaints were received with regard to Uploaded Request for Proposals (RFPs) on Central Public Procurement Portal (CPPP) with inflated quantifies of stores and the supply orders had been placed for lesser quantities which resulted in higher bids being obtained and accepted although store requirement was much less, keeping in view the Work Order given that the same is causing loss to the Army authorities. After the receipt of complaints, the work of fencing was re-looked into and keeping in view certain facts, an amount of Rs.1.92 crores, which was released to the bidders for execution of the construction of fencing, was re- deposited with the Army authorities. Subsequently, upon reconsideration, the Work Order was re-issued and same was duly executed.

2.2 Keeping in view the fact that at the time when the aforementioned incident happened, the petitioners happened to be posted at Jalandhar and were involved in the construction of fencing of the Jalandhar Cantonment, in order to find out whether the petitioners performed their duty with utmost dedication or not or they were negligent or connived with the bidder(s), a Court of Inquiry was ordered on 19.06.2019. The Court of Inquiry started its proceedings. The petitioners were heard, their statements were recorded and after looking into all the aspects, the Court of Inquiry submitted a report on 28.09.2019. It may be necessary to mention that the Competent Authority to examine the report of the Court of Inquiry to adjudge whether any further proceedings are to be carried out is the General Officer Commanding 11th Corps. (hereinafter referred to as ‘GOC’). After the submission of report of the Court of Inquiry to the GOC on 28.09.2019, vide letter dated 29.10.2019 issued from the office of the Brigadier General Staff (BGS), HQ11 Corps, directions were issued to carry out further investigations into certain aspects which according to the Competent Authority were not looked into while submitting the report dated 28.09.2019. After carrying out the further enquiry as directed, the first report of Court of Inquiry was again submitted to GOC, HQ 11 Corps vide communication dated 03.12.2019.

2.3 The GOC, on 19.02.2020, looked into all the aspects submitted in the report of the Court of Inquiry and vide order dated 24