CJI to decide listing of PIL on 'Agnipath': SC bench to petitioner

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the plea for an SIT probe into the damage to public properties during the protests against Agnipath will be listed for hearing after the Chief Justice of India takes a decision in this regardThe Agnipath scheme announced on June 14 provides for the recruitment of youths in the age group of 17andahalfyears to 21 years for a fouryear stint with a provision to retain 25 per cent of them for 15 more yearsProtests have erupted in several states against the scheme following which the Centre extended the upper age limit to 23 years for recruitment this yearAdvocate Vishal Tiwari urged a vacation bench of Justices C T Ravikumar and Sudhanshu Dhulia to list the plea for an urgent hearingReferring to the practice of listing cases during vacation the bench said This matter will be placed before the CJI The CJI will take a callThe Public Interest Litigation also sought directions to the Centre Uttar Pradesh Telangana Bihar Haryana and Rajasthan governments to submit a status report on the violent protestsTiwari in his petition also sought a direction to set up an expert committee under the chairmanship of a retired apex court judge to examine the scheme and its impact on national security and the armyHe further sought directions to the Centre and the states arrayed as parties to appoint claim commissioners under the guidelines laid down by the apex court in its 2009 verdict which was passed in a suo motu case initiated after incidents of damage to public propertiesThe petitioner through this present Public Interest Litigation Civil under Article 32 of the Constitution of India would like to bring to the courts attention the devastated condition of the country resulting from the Agnipath scheme launched by the Respondent No1 Union of India through its Ministry of Defence the plea readIt said the consequence has been farreaching for the citizens of this country resulting in intensified vandalism and protest and leading to severe destruction of public property and goodsAnother PIL has been filed by lawyer ML Sharma against Agnipath alleging that the government has quashed the centuryold selection process for the armed forces which is contrary to the constitutional provisions and without parliamentary approvalThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever