``A lame duck government that cannot get a Bill tabled or passed in Parliament without the support of the Congress suddenly decided to sack the Chief of Naval Staff? This is a conspiracy,'' she feels.``This is neither the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government nor is it a Samata Party government. This is a coalition government. Should they not have consulted coalition partners ?'' she asks.

There is resentment in the ranks too. ``Even a peon or a clerk is given a show-cause notice. If there was something as drastically wrong with Admiral Bhagwat's conduct as Fernandes is making it out to be, then should he not have given Bhagwat a show-cause notice? The government played right into the hands of the bureaucracy. A government that could noteven get a bureaucrat transferred without having its ears pulled, suddenly sacked the head of the Indian Navy,'' a Commodore observes.

Niloufer Bhagwat, however, feels it is more than just that. ``There is a group that comprises not just some politicians or bureaucrats but even some serving and retired navy officers who double up as arms dealers. And the Admiral was standing in their way,'' she says. As for her credentials to comment, Niloufer proudly says she is a constitutional lawyer of standing. ``Nobody in Mumbai knows me as the Admiral's wife. I am a lawyer in my own right,'' she insists.

``The Prime Minister dines and enjoys the hospitality of an officer (Vice Admiral Harinder Singh) on a vacation hours after the sacking of Admiral Bhagwat against whom there is a CBI inquiry pending. And to accommodate whom the Admiral was removed from service,'' she says, adding that it should be probed why the Defence Minister was so keen that a Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) plane should bring Vice AdmiralSushil Kumar to Delhi.'' Her reasoning is that the government wants ``pliable'' officers in crucial posts.She says the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) is not supreme as the Defence Minister states. ``Law is supreme and ACC is bound by the law. Three dictators cannot twist the law to suit their convenience. They have to come clean in the open,'' she challenged.

``Parliament is supreme. The Congress wanted to raise the issue of discord between the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the services in Parliament but then the government said that a debate should be avoided and the matter was being amicably resolved. George Fernandes was one of Indira Gandhi's worst critics during the Emergency period. But he has done what was never done in the worst of Emergency,'' she says.

She says that Bhagwat's removal is a ``politico-military coup'' and the good work initiated by him is being undermined.