Gen VK Singh can't be faulted for going to SC

Has the Army chief marched into forbidden territory by knocking the portals of the Supreme Court? After all, to resolve what he perceives as two differing points of view, he has only sought the intervention of a constitutionally empowered third party. One is not concerned with the merits of his claim here. It is also not proper to discuss it. His case will be countered by the government, with its views on the subject matter.
The court will ultimately pronounce its verdict and the contesting parties will abide by the outcome. "Be you ever so high, the law is above you" is an old adage. The issue having cropped up at the departmental level, the general is only taking it to its logical end -- just as any one of us would approach the courts for redress, when we think our rights are infringed. It cannot be that once you don the uniform, you are stripped of all legal rights. Yes, if the general had dragged the government to court on a policy issue concerning the armed forces, that would have been a gross act of indiscipline. Not so when his grievance is on a matter pertaining to the correct date of his birth. If someone who has presided over innumerable guards of honour desires to guard his own honour, how can we grudge it? When the high and mighty take law into their own hands, that is a genuine cause for concern. Not when they submit themselves to the due process of law. When judges of Saskatchewan province in Canada thought their salary could not be taxed, they took their matter in the appeal to the privy council, against the judgment of the court of appeal answering a governor's reference against them. Nearer home, a sitting Supreme Court judge, albeit through his spouse, moved the Supreme Court challenging the impeachment proceedings against him. Yet again, one of the prominent retired judges of the highest court, to evict a tenant from his house, had no hesitation in approaching the lowest rung of the judiciary for relief. A politically ambitious individual would have attempted secret parleys with the government to try to wangle a gubernatorial office after retirement, in exchange for accepting the government's claim. That would have been an illegitimate attempt to cling to office and clutch at power. The general is at least prepared to stick his neck out and place his case on the pulpit of the court. Instances are innumerable where the powers that be have been hauled up in courts to answer charges, both professional and personal. No doubt there was no choice there for them, but to go and appear in court, equally there was no shame either in seeking to answer the charge and vindicate one's honour. If that be so, what is wrong in initiating a claim for the self-same purpose. One need not salute the general for his going to court but there is no reason to stigmatize him either, for invoking judicial remedies.