Sanjha Morcha

Now, Army HQ can modify officers’ ACRs

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 25

Two years after the practice of the Army headquarters modifying and moderating the annual confidential reports (ACR) of officers after those had been duly finalised by the appropriate chain of command was struck down by the Ministry of Defence, it is now being re-introduced. The policy was done away with earlier following a legal opinion rendered upon it by the Solicitor General. Assessments in ACRs are the basis of promotion.Following deliberations in the Army Commanders Conference held in April, Army headquarters — in a letter sent to all Commands last week — highlighted the salient features of the policy. The headquarters maintains it will curb the “inflationary” trend of commanders awarding high grades to assessees in routine.Under this policy, the Military Secretary’s Branch will filter all ACRs by adopting a computer-assisted mathematical formula to identify assessment inconsistencies.Individual cases will then be identified for further analysis by a board of officers, which will give specific recommendations — requiring the Army Chief’s final approval — of corrective action to be carried out in each case. The changes will be subject to review if an individual feels aggrieved.The policy, according to the letter, will act as a precise tool to handle inflationary and deflationary assessments when warranted, control violation of NPN norms and assist in balancing assessments.The present tools, the letter added, suffer from certain limitations and have failed to arrest inflationary trends.Some officers, on the other hand, are of the opinion that the policy of moderating ACRs at Army headquarters amounts to questioning the credibility and judgement of senior reporting officers within a well-established hierarchical system assessment.It also runs the risk of promoting favouritism by targeting officers who have been otherwise found meritorious in original ACRs.The implementation of the policy could also lead to more litigation involving service matters. A large portion of cases concerning the armed forces are associated with ACRs, promotions and distribution of vacancies amongst various arms and services at the higher echelons.There have been several judgments in the recent past where the courts have come down heavily on the Army in the manner in which promotion matters have been handled. Also under scrutiny is the “value judgement” component of ACRs which accounts for 5 per cent of the marks awarded and is the discretion of the assessing officer.