The Hindu
All is fair in love and war. File Photo: V. V. Krishnan
Army won’t let him quit to get hitched to Sri Lankan national
Will Major Vikas Kumar of the Indian Army be able to
marry his Sri Lankan girlfriend Arnila Ranamali Gunaratne who is
pursuing her M.Phil. in Bangalore?
A Division Bench,
comprising Chief Justice Vkramajit Sen and Justice B.V. Nagarathna, of
the High Court will soon decide on the order of the Indian Army, which
had rejected the 34-year-old’s request to cast away his uniform so that
he can marry a foreign national.
As Army rules don’t
permit personnel to marry those who loath to give up their foreign
citizenship, Major Kumar, an officer with Corps of Signals, decided to
resign post as Ms. Gunaratne (29) was unwilling to give up her Sri
Lankan nationality.
However, the Army did not accept
his resignation saying he had not completed the mandatory period
service, there is a shortage of officers in the Corps of Signals and he
is under investigation for unauthorised contract with a foreign national
and failing to report it to the authorities.
A
single judge bench had set aside the Army’s order but had allowed the
Army to investigate the Major’s conduct with regard to contact with a
foreign national.
The Defence Ministry appealed against the order before the Division Bench.
During
the hearing on Tuesday, the Bench, in a lighter vein asked whether Army
was against love marriage or did it think love at first sight was not a
possibility? The Bench also referred to former President K.R. Narayanan
[the supreme commander of the armed forces], who had married a
Myanmarese.
Major Kumar, an engineering graduate,
met Ms. Gunaratne in 2011 and they fell in love. They planned to marry
in November 2011 but Army’s rejection of his resignation put paid to all
that. The smitten Major has undertaken to pay back all expenses the
Indian Army spent on his training besides not seeking any terminal
benefit for his service with the Army since 2000.
After hearing the appeal filed by the Union, the Division Bench has reserved its verdict.
