Sixth Pay Commission: Naval chief rubbishes censure report

Sixth Pay Commission: Naval chief rubbishes censure report

New Delhi, Oct 6 (PTI) Naval Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta today rubbished media reports that he was censured by Defence Minister A K Antony as he maintained that the questions raised by the armed forces over the new pay scales were the "core issues" related to their status.
Mehta expressed confidence that the ministerial committee, headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, will take the "right decision" and "pretty quickly".

"I think (the media) is quoting things, which never happened, and bringing out issues, which have no substantiation at all," he told reporters here when referred to a news report that he was pulled up by Antony for the third time for "defiance" over the Pay Commission recommendations.

Mehta maintained that the defence personnel's grievances over the 6th Pay Commission report were "not about money," but about "status equivalence" and command and control issues.

"I said so the other day and I will say it again. The issue over here is not about money. The issue here is that there is a certain status equivalence -- there are certain functional requirement (while) working at particular levels," he said.

He said the issues "missed out" were "oversights" and nobody "could have done it wilfully".

Noting that the Mukherjee committee is in the process of finding out what are the issues involved, he said "I'm sure they will take the right decision pretty quickly." "I should think that we will have a final answer within about two weeks time or so," Mehta said about the Mukherjee committee set-up to look into the grievances of "anomalies" highlighted by the defence forces. PTI

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