Will Army chief Gen Naravane be the next CDS?

Chances are strong that Army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane may be appointed as the next CDS as the Navy and the IAF chief have assumed their positions very recently and have not spent much time as service chiefs, writes senior journalist Sanjib Kr Baruah.

New Delhi: With the sudden demise of India’s first-ever Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat in a deadly chopper crash near Tamil Nadu’s Coonoor on Wednesday noon, the question arises who will fill the post of the CDS.

Going by plain logic, the present Army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane seems the most likely choice at the moment.

Taking over as chief of India’s 13-lakh-strong army from General Bipin Rawat on December 31, 2019, Gen Naravane would have served at the helm till April 2022. But that won’t be the case if he is appointed as the next CDS, which means he will get an extension which may be till he is 65 years of age or completes at least three years of the CDS assignment.

Ideally, the CDS is someone who should have led one of the three services—the army, the navy of the air force. Service chiefs have a fixed tenure of three years or 62 years of age whichever is earlier while the tenure of the CDS is not fixed.

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The CDS is to be the senior-most officer of the armed forces. At the moment, it is the army chief who is the senior-most among the serving military officials.

While the present Navy chief Admiral R Hari Kumar has spent just eight days as the Chief of Naval Staff after assuming office on November 30, IAF chief Air Chief Marshal Vivek Ram Chaudhari took over on September 30, and has been at the helm for just a little more than two months.

If the rules of seniority are to be followed, Gen Naravane's post may then be filled by either the Northern Army commander Lieutenant General Yogesh Kumar Joshi or by the serving vice chief of the army Lieutenant General Chandi Prasad Mohanty. Incidentally, Lieutenant General Joshi is senior to both the IAF and Navy chiefs.