Lessons learnt from Army chief's age row issue: India Defence Minister

New Delhi, Feb 17 (PTI) Lessons have been learnt from the experience in the age row involving Indian Army chief General V K Singh but there was no strain in relations between the government and the Army over the issue, Defence Minister A K Antony said today. The Minister also stressed that the country cannot afford to have such controversies in the future and steps have already been taken to avoid them. "We have learnt lessons from it.... There is no strain .... Now what we are going to do hereafter in all armed forces as a whole is that we will ask everybody to strictly reconcile different documents so that this kind of conflict of views does not happen in future," he said here. The minister was asked if there was any strain in the ties between the Defence Ministry and the Army after the developments in the Supreme Court where Gen Singh withdrew his petition against the government on the age issue. "This is a closed chapter now. This happened unfortunately due to two dates of birth in the Army.... India cannot afford to have such controversies in the future," Antony said. The Defence Minister said the issue was a "closed chapter". It should not be raked up again, he added. Recently, the Defence Minister had said that he had full faith in the Army chief. The Supreme Court had held on February 10 that the government's decision on Singh's date of birth as May 10, 1950, will apply to his service matters, forcing him to withdraw his plea contending that he was born a year later. Indian Army maintains two sets of records. Gen. Singh's age issue cropped up as the year of birth was 1950 in one and 1951 in the second. With 1950 as the year of birth, he now retires at end of May 2012 when he attains the superannuation age of 62. If 1951 was to have been taken as the year of birth, he would have retired at March 2013 end when he would have completed a full tenure of three years. PTI