Serving in the Indian Army is a dream many young aspirants in classes 8 to 12. The drawback of having this dream is that the chances of getting an opportunity to serve in the Indian Army are very few. As soon as one passes out of school after class 11 and 12 they have the opportunity to appear for the NDA examination but the recruitment of new army officers under the NDA examination is very less. also the number of attempts that a candidate gets is shockingly less- just two attempts. Therefore, candidates often search for opportunities to get into posts of the Indian Army or the Air Force or the Navy after graduation.
While the CDS examination is one such opportunity, students who have pursued law during graduation have a special opportunity where legally qualified officers are hired via the JAG or the Judge Advocate General Entry. The specialty of this test is that the law graduates do not have to go through the written examination as in NDA or CDS. Having a law degree makes them eligible to directly appear before the panel for an interview that is the 5-day SSB interview.
Requirements
One must be a registered advocate under the bar council after passing the bar council examination after his or her law degree in order to be eligible for the Jag entry. The candidates must not be more than 27 years of age and must qualify in all the physical and fitness standards required. It is a well understood fact that there are chances of candidates who are quite academic in nature and therefore for students who are myopic are allowed up to -4 of eye power. In case the candidate has higher power than his or her recruitment can be done after an eye surgery. This is surely not the case with the general NDA candidates since any student with even slight eye power nor students who have had a surgery are not selected.
Perks Of being a JAG officer
The perks of qualifying as a JAG officer in the army and many. First of all, the training period lasts for a few months and the cadets receive an amount of 50,000 as stipend during the training period. Next, they serve on a short Commission service for about 15 to 20 years after which they have a choice to discontinue that Army service and do a government job after receiving a promotion and continue their service in the army. However, the latter option is much based on performance. In both the cases they would receive pension. Most importantly, the glory that one receives as a JAG officer is beyond comparison and the pay scale is also quite handsome after joining the service. It is not just the pay scale but also many government amenities that are provided along with the salary for the candidate as well as his or her family.
Drawbacks of the examination
The disadvantages of this examination is that just like any other Army entrance examination, the number of attempts at few and the number of candidates that are recruited are also very few. to make matters worse for female candidates, every year a vacancy of only 3 candidates is released while for male candidates, a vacancy of 5-7 candidates can be expected.
Further, another drawback is that it might be difficult for a student who has been pursuing an entirely academic course of law for 3 to 5 years to qualify the fitness standard tests as compared to one who is preparing solely for the CDS entrance examination.
A long-term drawback of this examination is that in a situation where a candidate has served in the army as a legally qualified Jag officer on a Short Service Commission, and does not get the chance to serve any further based on performance, and is offered with a government job that is not of his interest, it would be difficult for him or her to return in the field of law as the field of law requires experience as its greatest skill and such an individual would have lost 20 years of the experience that he could have gained in the law field. He would then have to work for a government job that he would not be satisfied with or a job which would not interest him at all although he would get the salary and the incentives. Therefore one must aspire to become a JAG officer only if one is wholeheartedly interested in serving the Indian Army and after knowing the future prospects once the person retires.
