The Delhi high court on Friday said it will first hear the pleas directly challenging the Centre's Agnipath scheme and then decide those concerning the recruitment processes for the armed forces under certain previous advertisements.
A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad said it will hear on December 12 a batch of pleas challenging the scheme.
The bench asked Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati to segregate petitions which are challenging the Agnipath scheme and those concerning the recruitment processes for the armed forces under certain previous advertisements and file a chart before the court.
"We will first hear the Agniveer matter. The core issue here is Agniveer. This is our opinion. If this issue is decided this way or that way, it will have some bearing on other cases," the bench said.
It said the court cannot hear all the pleas together so it will first take up the Agnipath issue.
"We will take it up on December 12 at 2:30 pm. Whether we are able to complete our list (of cases) by then or not, we will take this matter at 2:30 pm," the bench added.
On a request made by advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing one of the petitioners, to hear the matter on a day to day basis, the bench said it will consider it.
The bench said that the reply filed by the Centre is restricted only to the Agnipath scheme and does not deal with other pleas and if the government wants to add something, it can do so.
The court also granted liberty to the parties to file any other additional reply or rejoinder in the matter before the next date of hearing.
The Centre had earlier filed its consolidated reply to several petitions against the Agnipath scheme as well as those concerning the recruitment processes for the armed forces under certain previous advertisements.
Some of the petitioners have filed their rejoinders while others are yet to do it.
In its "consolidated" reply, the central government has said that there was no legal infirmity in the Agnipath scheme.
The government submitted the Agnipath scheme was introduced in exercise of its sovereign function to make national security and defence more "robust, "impenetrable" and "abreast with changing military requirement".
The Agnipath scheme, unveiled on June 14, lays out rules for the recruitment of youths in the armed forces. According to these rules, those between 17-and-a-half and 21 years are eligible to apply and they would be inducted for a four-year tenure, and 25 per cent of them will be granted regular service subsequently. After the scheme was unveiled, protests erupted in several states against the scheme.
Later, the government extended the upper age limit to 23 years for recruitment in 2022.
One of the petitions before the high court has sought a direction to the armed forces to resume the recruitment process which have been cancelled due to the introduction of the Agnipath scheme and prepare the final merit list after conducting a written examination within a stipulated time.
A petitioner, named Rahul, has submitted he had applied for the post of soldier (general duty) and his physical and medical examinations were conducted which he cleared successfully, and was waiting for the written examination.
However, he said, he found on the official website that consequent to the implementation of Agnipath, the ministry has stopped and cancelled all pending processes including the Common Entrance Examination (CEE) of Indian Army recruitment for the previous recruiting years.
He said there were several candidates like him who applied for other posts in the armed forces but their respective processes were also cancelled.
Another petition, seeking that the recruitment process in the Indian Air Force as per a 2019 notification be completed without being affected by the scheme, is also pending in the high court.
Besides the pleas filed before it, the high court is also hearing those transferred to it.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had asked the high courts of Kerala, Punjab and Haryana, Patna and Uttarakhand to transfer the PILs against the Agnipath scheme pending before them to the Delhi high court or keep it pending till a decision from the Delhi high court is delivered, if the petitioners before it so desire.
Three petitions on Agnipath before the apex court were also sent to the high court.
The petitions before the Supreme Court have sought a direction to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the damage to public properties, including that of the Railways, during the violent protests against the scheme.
The Centre, in its reply, has stated that defending the Indian territory, which has a "peculiar border situation", from external and internal threats requires agile, youthful and technologically adept armed forces, and the Agnipath scheme aims to reduce the average age profile of soldiers from the present 32 years to 26 years.
Recruitment through Agnipath, the central government has added, involves a "merit based, transparent and robust assessment process" and a fair opportunity would be provided to all willing personnel to compete for regular cadre and ultimately "nationalist, disciplined and skilled manpower would be provided to society and exited Agniveers will be an asset for the nation and society".
