Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: Western Navy Command chief Vice Admiral Shekhar Sinha on Thursday put in his papers seeking voluntary retirement after his junior Admiral RK Dhowan superseded him to take over as Navy chief.
Vice Admiral Shekhar Sinha, who is six months senior to newly appointed Navy chief Robin Dhowan shot off a letter to the Defence Ministry seeking voluntary retirement just months before his tenure was to end in August this year.
The appointment of Admiral Dhowan yesterday came a couple of months after the ex-Navy chief Admiral DK Joshi retired in Feb, in wake of more than a dozen of mishaps in less than one year time.
And reports say, one of the reasons that led the government to overlook Vice Admiral Sinha while appointing the chief, might be that it was under his command that most of the mishaps occured.
Two major mishaps that struck Indian Navy involved submarines INS Sindhuratna and INS Sindhurakshak.
INS Sindhuratna mishap killed two Indian Navy officers this year while submarine INS Sindhurakshak sank at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai, killing 18 personnel.
