New Delhi: The Supreme Court has restored the honour of an Army veteran who was among the officers who led the Operation Bluestar in 1984 and upheld a decision to exonerate him of charges of alleged misconduct and award him a rank of Lieutenant Colonel post-retirement.

The top court upheld the decision of Armed Forces Tribunal setting aside the “punishment of reprimand” awarded to Major (now retd) Kunwar Ambreshwar Singh on charge of retaining certain electronic items recovered during the operation to flush out Sikh extremists from the Golden Temple Complex.

A bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bushan dismissed the appeal of the Centre against the AFT order but reduced the cost imposed on the government from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 1 lakh.

“We see no merit in this appeal and the same is, accordingly, dismissed. However, we find that the costs of Rs 10 lakhs imposed upon the appellant is quite excessive. We reduce the said costs to Rs 1 lakh,” the bench said.

The AFT, Lucknow, in its verdict on August 11 last year had exonerated Singh of all charges and set aside the order passed by the Chief of the Army Staff refusing to grant substantive rank of Lt Col by time scale to him and all other directions which deprived him promotional avenues.

It had said, the government will promote Singh notionally on the substantive rank of Lt Col (Time Scale) along with his batchmates for the purpose of payment of arrears of salary and post-retiral dues, pension and other benefits.

“The effect of Operation Bluestar of June, 1984 still haunting and the present case is off shoot of said operation wherein a commissioned officer of Indian Army is struggling for justice since last 33 years,” the tribunal had observed.