Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that there is no place for a cowardly soldier in the army. The incident in question occurred in 2006 in the Kashmir Valley, when the army had surrounded militants inside a cordon. During the ensuing firefight, the dismissed soldier chose not to engage with the cornered militants and instead deserted his post, because of which the militants were able to break the cordon, kill an army personnel and decamp with a machine gun.
The soldier was armed with an assault rifle and a pistol but did not retaliate with either. The honourable bench pointed out that soldiers cannot be exonerated from cowardice just because they had participated wholeheartedly in previous operations, and had never displayed fear prior to this incident and upheld his dismissal from service.
