Kolkata: Welcoming the appointment of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), former Army chief General Shankar Roy Chowdhury (Retd) on January 9 said it had not been done earlier because the then political bosses’ feared a coup.

He said the appointment of a CDS was due for a long time and the services wanted it to be there in the country so that the Army, Navy and Air Force come under one umbrella, “but the problem was political.”

“The fear of a coup was ingrained among the earlier political bosses if all the three forces — Army, Navy and Air Force — were brought under one umbrella and that was the only reason that a post of CDS was not created,” Roy Chowdhury told newspersons in Kolkata.

General Bipin Rawat, who retired as the Army chief on December 31, took charge as India’s first Chief of Defence Staff the next day with a mandate to bring in convergence in the functioning of the Army, Navy and the Indian Air Force and bolster the country’s military prowess.

Gen Chowdhury said the military is always subordinate to the civil authorities in the country, but an “unsubstantiated” fear of a coup if the forces were brought under one head had prevented the then political establishment from taking a decision on it.

“This is the single reason why the country did not have a CDS so far,” the former Army chief said. He said the post of CDS is important for the coordination of the three forces.