New DELHI – Tej Bahadur Yadav, an ex-soldier of the Indian army, who wasdismissed by the Border Security Force (BSF) for making a video complainingabout poor quality of food, has approached the Punjab and Haryana HighCourt against his dismissal from the service.
Yadav, who was deployed with the force’s 29th battalion, had levelledallegations that troops were served bad quality food and even had to sleep“on an empty stomach” at times, leading to initiation of an inquiry againsthim.
After the ex-soldier filed a plea with the court, the single bench ofJustice P B Bajanthri served notice to the centre, Director General of theBSF and others.
NDTV quoted Yadav as “Since no improvement took place in food quality andquantity the petitioner and his BSF colleagues decided to make a videoproof of such poor quality and quantity of food for showing it to theirsenior officers”.
His counsel said that Yadav did not know when his colleagues postedthe video on his Facebook account which went viral in no time.
The former soldier in his petition stated that the department submitted twocharg-sheets against him in February 2017, adding that he was sacked by theSummary Security Force Court (SSFC) in April last year.
He added that an appeal was also filed against the SSFC order but theDirector General of the BSF turned it down in November 2017, the counselsaid.
“We just raised a point that petitioner was just demanding food insufficient quantity. But he was dismissed from service,” Yadav said.
The court will take up the case on May 28, 2018.
‘We only get a ‘paratha’ (wheat bread) and tea as breakfast and thattoo without any pickle or vegetables. We slog for 11 hours and at times wehave to stand throughout the duty hours. For lunch, we get ‘dal’ (pulses)with only ‘haldi’ (turmeric) and salt with roti. This is the quality of thefood we get. How can a jawan do his duty?’ asked Yadav in the video.