New Delhi, April 23, PTI: The Supreme Court on Monday called for the the cabinet papers on the appointment of Lt Gen Bikram Singh, who has been named the army chief-designate, after a Public Interest Litigation alleged the eastern army commander was not fit for the office.

A bench of justices RM Lodha and HL Gokhale asked the Centre to furnish the papers that the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet had examined before clearing Bikram Singh as the next army chief.

The government's lawyers, including Attorney General GE Vahanvati and Solicitor General Rohinton F Nariman, opposed the PIL and said it was seeking to revive the controversy over the age and tenure of the current army chief, Gen V K Singh. 

Gen V K Singh had withdrawn his petition challenging the government's rejection of his statutory complaint in February.

But the court said it will not touch the issue of date of birth.

The PIL, filed by former navy chief Admiral L Ramdas and a group of retired senior bureaucrats and army officers, has alleged there was a case pending in Jammu and Kashmir against Gen Bikram Singh and that he was involved in a fake encounter in 2001.

The PIL also alleges that Gen Bikram Singh erred by omission during his tenure as leader of a UN Peace Keeping Mission in Congo in 2008. A group of Indian Army officers and soldiers are being investigated for illicit relations with Congolese women while on the mission.

The PIL also alleged a communal bias in the appointment of Gen Bikram Singh.