How do army officers get promoted

The results were declared a month later. After this, some women who were not granted a permanent commission had moved the Supreme Court. In response to their petition, the Supreme Court had held that the evaluation criteria for granting permanent commission to women officers systematically discriminated against them.

A negative or mediocre fitness report can result in being passed over. Lack of current or previous assignments that had significant degrees of responsibility can also result in not being selected.

Once selected for promotion by the promotion board, not all officers are promoted at the same time. Instead, officers are assigned a line number. Each month, the service releases the line numbers of officers to be promoted.

This process ensures a smooth promotion flow throughout the year following the promotion board. Line numbers are determined using the following criteria:. Being a Reserve Officer does not mean the officer is serving in the Reserves. Being a Regular officer means a better chance of being promoted, protects against RIFs reduction in force and allows an officer to serve longer.

By law, Regular Officers promoted to lieutenant colonel O-5 may serve for 28 active commissioned years, while those promoted to colonel O-6 may stay for 30 active commissioned years unless earlier retired by other provisions of law. By policy, Reserve Officers are limited to 20 years of military service; this may be extended as needed to meet specific service requirements.

Regular Officers may not be involuntarily released from active duty because of a reduction in the size of the officer force. Reserve Officers, however, serve at the discretion of the Secretary of the service and may be involuntarily released at any time if the personnel ceiling warrants.

Because of Regular Officers' greater tenure, they have some advantage over Reserve Officers. The military must obtain a return on training investment and, therefore, requires officers to serve a certain period of time after the training is completed. To be promoted to O-7, an officer must first complete a full tour in a Joint-Duty-Assignment—an assignment to a unit that comprises members from two or more of the services. It works. The issue of seniority within the batch up to the rank of major general and equivalent comes into play only to decide the sequence in which the officers are promoted and assigned appointments post empanelment.

However, the seniority and residual service play a role in the postings of three-star officers. Appointments of all three-star rank officers and Chiefs of the three services are approved by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet ACC. To clear officers to the appointments of C-in-C commander in chief and Chiefs of the three services, the service headquarters propose a panel of officers who meet the laid down criteria to the ACC for approval.

In order to provide a stable tenure in these key appointments, the criteria of residual service is applied while proposing the names.

Normally, the senior-most officer is approved for the appointment unless there are strong inputs to change the order. It is entirely the prerogative of the ACC to appoint a person other than the senior-most, which is not a norm but an exception. One reason which justifies seniority as the main criteria for appointments at higher level is the fact that by the time all these officers reach the three-star rank, they have already successfully faced four selection boards for promotion from Lt Colonel to Lt General which signifies continued consistency in their performance.

At this stage, imposing an external agency to scrutinise the profile of senior officers to decide on comparative merit defies logic and will be unfair to the services and the affected officers who have built their profile putting in decades of hard work.

Despite petitioner achieving high grading because of his hard work and successfully completing the course, he was found unfit even for the first rank of Lt.

Colonel by Selection Boards held in the year , and His juniors were being selected for the higher ranks, superceding him. Citing a Supreme Court judgement, the AFT bench said the government could not permit two dates of retirement for persons working in the same rank. Therefore, even the Colonel Time Scale will have the same rules and benefits as applicable to Colonel Select. Get it now!! Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

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