Explained | The Inter-Services Organisations (Command, Control and Discipline) Bill, 2023 Premium

What is the recently introduced Inter-Services Organisations Command, Control and Discipline Bill. What are its features and what does it propose. Check out an explainer on the Inter-Services Organisations Command, Control and Discipline Bill.

The story so far: Last month, the government introduced a Bill which seeks to empower designated defence heads of inter-services organisations with certain administrative and disciplinary powers over all personnel serving in the command or attached to it. The Bill, ‘The Inter-Services Organisations (Command, Control and Discipline) Bill, 2023’, was tabled in the Lok Sabha by Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhat during the recently concluded Budget Session.

Inter-services organisations include soldiers from the Army, the Air Force and the Navy, like joint training institutes National Defence Academy, National Defence College (NDC), Defence Services Staff College (DSSC), and the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC).

At present, armed forces personnel are governed by the provisions of three separate laws for the three services — the Air Force Act, 1950, the Army Act, 1950, and the Navy Act, 1957. Only an officer of the same service holds disciplinary powers over persons governed by the respective Act. As far as inter-services organisations are concerned, this directly impacts command, control and discipline.

Since the commander-in-chief of a joint services command and the officer-in-command of any other inter-services organisation are not empowered with disciplinary powers, any person accused of an offence has to be sent back to the parent service unit for any disciplinary or administrative action.

For example: if an Air Force officer commits an offence at the Defence Services Staff College, then the Academy Commandant— who is a three-star rank officer of the Indian Army— can’t initiate action against said individual. Instead, the officer is repatriated to their parent Air Force unit, and action, if any, will follow under the Air Force Act, 1950.

The existing framework is time-consuming and involves financial costs to move the personnel. Proceedings become even more cumbersome when the disciplinary or administrative proceedings arise from the same set of facts and circumstances but involve personnel belonging to different services. “As a result, multiple sets of proceedings under the respective Service Acts are required to be initiated, which impedes expeditious disposal of cases, thereby affecting the standard of discipline,” the text of the Bill says.

The proposed legislation aims to address these impediments to ensure discipline is maintained and targets faster disposal of cases, which in turn is likely to save time and public money “without disturbing the unique service conditions or amending the service Acts.”