The Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) is a statutory office held by the professional head of the Indian Air Force (IAF), the aerial branch of the Indian Armed Forces.[3] Customarily held by a four-star air chief marshal, the CAS is the senior-most operational officer of the IAF, mandated with the responsibilities of supervising the force's overall functioning during states of peace and wartime, committing to the establishment-cum-continuity of air deterrence and executing India's security objectives vis-à-vis the preservation of the country's air sovereignty.[4]
Being a permanent member of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) and the National Security Council (NSC), the CAS also bears the responsibility of advising the nation's civilian leadership i.e., the Government of India on all matters privy to the IAF.[5]
Statutorily, the CAS ranks 12th-overall in the Indian order of precedence, and is the IAF's status-equivalent of the Chief of Defence Staff, the Chief of the Army Staff and the Chief of the Naval Staff - all three positions of which are also occupied by four-star officers from the armed forces.[6]
Seated at Air Headquarters (Air HQ), stationed in New Delhi, the CAS is the senior-most operational officer of the IAF, and is tasked with the following:
In addition to these responsibilities, the CAS is also a permanent member of:
The office's eminence in the aforementioned groups thus grants the appointee with the role to advise the Minister of Defence (Raksha Mantri or RM) on the affairs related to the IAF's functioning and the promotion of an comprehensive integrated planning policy with respect to the affairs of tri-service integration, doctrinal strategy, capability development, defence acquisition and infrastructure.[10][11]
As the professional head of the force, the CAS is assisted by one subordinate officer and one principal staff officer, namely:
Initially, beginning in the pre-independence era, until 1966, the office of CAS was held by a three-star air marshal; the first six chiefs in the post-independence IAF were three-star air marshals.[12] However, the office’s rank-specifications was raised to the four-star rank of air chief marshal in January 1966, initially as a recognitive measure to Air Marshal Arjan Singh, the IAF's third and then-incumbent CAS, for his leadership of the IAF during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965; every CAS-appointee since then has been an air chief marshal.[12]
The move to appoint a new designate to the position usually begins three months before the change-of-command, wherein the Ministry of Defence (MoD) reviews the résumés of the IAF's senior-most air marshals, which regularly includes the Vice Chief of the Air Staff and at-most three of the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chiefs (AOC-in-C) of the force’s combatant commands.[13] Appointments to the position are made by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) - comprising the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence, upon recommendation from Air HQ; appointees to the office are subsequently promoted to the rank of air chief marshal.[14]
During the initial years of the post-independence IAF, CAS-appointees were given one four-year term, with the possibility of extension; Air Marshal Subroto Mukherjee was the longest serving chief – at 6 years, 7 months, 7 days, and the only appointee to have ever received a second four-year term; nevertheless, he unexpectedly died halfway through it.[15]
Currently, according to the Regulations for the Air Force, 2000 – a CAS-appointee reaches superannuation upon the completion of three years in the position or at the age of 62, whichever is earlier.[16] However, an appointee may also be dismissed from office by the President of India before the conclusion of the tenure under Section 18-19 of the Air Force Act, 1950 and Article 310 of the Constitution.[17]
Additionally, a CAS-appointee is also eligible to be selected for the position of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), in accordance with the Air Force (Amendment) Regulations, 2022 - which prescribes that the designated nominee, in this case the CAS, must be under the age of 62 at the time of appointment as CDS; as of 2024, no CAS-appointee has ever been appointed as CDS.[18][19]
Since the establishment of the Indian Air Force (IAF) in October 1932 (later rechristened the Royal Indian Air Force (RIAF)), the organization's professional head bore the undermentioned designations:[20]
Upon independence and the subsequent partition of the subcontinent, RAF India was bifurcated into two new entities: a successor Royal Indian Air Force (RIAF) - responsible for the Dominion of India, and the newly-formed Royal Pakistan Air Force (RPAF) - responsible for the Dominion of Pakistan. However, the former role of Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Air Forces in India was trifurcated into three positions:
Whilst the RIAF and RPAF maintained their respective commanding officers, the Deputy Supreme Commander (Air), who worked for the Supreme Commander's Headquarters (Supreme HQ), acted as the overall coordinator for the two new air forces, under the additional title of Air Officer Commanding RAF Units in India and Pakistan.[23] The role was disbanded in November 1947, following which India and Pakistan subsequently gained full organizational control of the RIAF and RPAF, respectively.[23]
On 1 March 1948, the designation of the RIAF's commanding officer was rechristened as Chief of the Air Staff,[24] and again to Chief of the Air Staff and Commander-in-Chief, Royal Indian Air Force (CAS/C-in-C, RIAF) on 21 June - as a measure to reflect uniformity with the C-in-Cs of the post-independence Indian Army and the Royal Indian Navy.[25] Upon India's establishment as a republic on 26 January 1950, the RIAF was rechristened as the Indian Air Force (IAF), dropping the Royal-prefix; subsequently, the position's designation was again modified to Chief of the Air Staff and Commander-in-Chief, Indian Air Force (CAS/C-in-C, IAF).[26] In the initial years after independence, up until 1950, the position was occupied by two air marshals seconded from the RAF, namely, Sir Thomas Walker Elmhirst and Sir Ronald Ivelaw-Chapman.[26]
In 1954, Air Marshal Sir Gerald Ernest Gibbs, the IAF's third and then-serving CAS/C-in-C, and originally an RAF-secondment, retired; as a consequence, Air Vice Marshal Subroto Mukherjee - then the IAF's Deputy Chief of the Air Staff (DCAS), was promoted to rank of Air Marshal and succeeded him as the first native and first non-RAF C-in-C of the force.[27] A year later, in 1955, the designation of C-in-C was shortened to simply Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) through the Commanders-In-Chief (Change in Designation) Act, 1955; as a result of the Act, Mukherjee's tenure continued under the new designation, making him the last C-in-C.[28]
In January 2002, then-retired Air Chief Marshal Arjan Singh, the IAF's third CAS, was promoted to the five-star rank of Marshal of the Indian Air Force (MIAF), in recognition of his leadership during the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War - which made him the only CAS-appointee to have ever been promoted to the rank; his promotion occurred thirty-three years after his superannuation.[29] To note, although the rank-holder of MIAF is nominally the highest-ranking officer in the IAF, the rank is all but titular with no operational duties attached, which leaves the CAS as the highest operationally-active officer in the IAF.[30]
(**Seconded from the Royal Air Force)