Court-martial proceedings begin against two Navy officers over INS Brahmaputra capsize

The Indian Navy has begun court-martial proceedings against two officers over the capsizing of the guided-missile frigate INS Brahmaputra at the Mumbai Naval Dockyard. NDTV reported that a fire broke out aboard the warship on July 21, 2024, while she was undergoing repairs at the dockyard.

The commanding officer faces charges of hazarding a naval ship and negligence. The officer of the day has been charged with negligence. Both are now before a military court. A court martial is a trial conducted under military law by a military court with the power to award punishment to personnel subject to that law.

What the officers are charged with

The charges are specific and career-defining. The commanding officer is accused of hazarding a naval ship and of negligence, while the officer of the day faces a negligence charge. Under the court-martial process described in the reports, a conviction can carry penalties ranging from a reprimand and loss of seniority to imprisonment of up to two years. For a commanding officer, even the lighter outcomes would damage future prospects.

The Brahmaputra was a guided-missile frigate, one of the more capable ships in the Navy’s fleet. Her loss in a dockyard accident, rather than in operational service, makes the court-martial over accountability in routine repair and maintenance work a distinct case. The Navy has moved from an internal inquiry into a formal court-martial proceeding, which is the stage at which witnesses, charges and evidence are tested before a military court.

Separate court-martial in the Army

The Army has also initiated court-martial proceedings, this time over an allowance fraud alleged to involve forged official service records. The Indian Express reported that an Army havildar clerk posted at Binnaguri in West Bengal is facing summary court-martial proceedings. The havildar is alleged to have pocketed ₹1.73 crore in commissions in a fraud case involving ₹5.58 crore.

The charge sheet, as reported, lists nearly a dozen offences. These include falsely publishing Part II orders for allowances and forgery. Part II orders are the official service records used to settle allowances, so falsifying them allows unauthorised payments to be drawn from defence accounts. The summary court-martial route is a quicker process, but the charges are serious because they go to the integrity of financial record-keeping in the service.

Together, the two proceedings show the range of cases that reach a court martial. One concerns the loss of a frontline warship during repairs, with charges framed around the safety of a naval ship and negligence by senior duty officers. The other concerns financial fraud through forged orders, with a specific ₹5.58 crore figure and ₹1.73 crore in alleged commissions.

What happens next is for the military courts to decide. In the Navy case, the officers will have to answer charges that carry possible imprisonment of up to two years, alongside reprimand and loss of seniority. In the Army case, the havildar clerk faces summary proceedings on nearly a dozen charges tied to the allowance scam. Both matters are now before military courts, and the outcomes will turn on the evidence led in each proceeding.