Chandigarh, July 11 (IANS) An army court has ordered the dismissal of a woman officer on grounds of disobedience for falsely accusing three of her senior colleagues of sexual harassment, a lawyer said here Saturday.
Delivering its verdict Friday, the court also held Captain Poonam Kaur of the Army Supply Corps guilty of making false allegations and leaking information to the media.

S.K. Aggarwal, who was Kaur’s counsel during the court of inquiry that preceded the court martial, immediately cried foul.

“There are many loopholes in the trial as the court of inquiry did not investigate the allegations of sexual harassment alleged by Poonam Kaur against her seniors. Instead they initiated a court martial against her and held her guilty,” Aggarwal told IANS here Saturday.

Kaur, who was based at the Kalka military station, some 30 km from here, had levelled the allegations before the media in July 2008.

She had also complained that she was being illegally kept under house arrest by the army.

The army had immediately denied Kaur’s charges, saying she had a history of making allegations and her “mental weakness” had been recorded in her official profile.

Following this, Defence Minister A.K. Antony had also ordered the Indian Army to probe allegations of “physical and mental torture” levelled by Kaur against three senior male officers.

According to Aggarwal, Kaur had never spoken to the media about her case.

“She never spoke to anybody about her work or about the Indian army. The only problem with her case was that she is a daughter of a serving havildar (non-commissioned officer) in the army. Therefore, they dealt indifferently with her case,” the lawyer added.

Kaur had been posted at Kalka Oct 18, 2007 after a stint in the northeast. There were 21 charges against her when the court of inquiry began but 11 of them were dropped.