SC criticizes Army for refusing to promote any woman officers of PC

New Delhi: The Indian Army was chastised by the Supreme Court (SC) for allegedly doing women permanent commission officers “disservice” when they were refused promotion to colonels. The court ruled that the deadline for considering the officers’ confidential reports was “arbitrary” and ordered a new exercise to be carried out in a fortnight to reevaluate the cases of nearly 136 women officers who were competing for promotions.

SC asks for justice to women officers in Army

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud said, “The cut off was applied arbitrarily in the present case to ostensibly equate the women officers to their male counterparts.” The Army and the Union government used its policy framework and the March 2021 ruling of the Supreme Court, which established uniform standards for men and women short service commission officers to be considered for permanent commission, to defend their actions.

The bench, also comprising justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said, “An attitude has been to find some way to defeat the just entitlements of women officers. Such an approach does disservice to the need to provide justice to the women officers, who have already fought a long and hard battle, to get their just entitlements under law.”

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Only 108 women officers promoted

The women officers complained in their application filed the previous year that the Special Selection Board – 3 (SB-3) that appoints officers as Colonels had not convened for eighteen months, despite the ruling in Nitisha v. Union of India on March 25, 2021, which directed the Army to provide all consequential benefits, such as financial benefits and promotions, to the women officers within three months. They claimed discrimination because the SB-3 was exclusively for male cops, and officers who were far less experienced than the female officers were being appointed.

Only 108 women officers were promoted out of 150 open positions in SB-3’s declassified results, which were announced in January of this year. There were 136 female officers that were excluded. The Supreme Court was approached by nearly forty female officers protesting their non-empanelment.

42 spots remaining unfilled

Speaking on behalf of the Union government, Attorney General R Venkataramani stated that the deadline of May 31, 2012, was used to determine if the secret reports of female police were equivalent to those of their male counterparts. He went on to defend it by stating that 42 spots remained unfilled and that 108 women officers who met this threshold would be appointed as permanent commission officers in succeeding batches.

The Court said, “In our view, the manner in which the cut off has been applied for reckoning the confidential reports of women officers for empanelment as Colonel is arbitrary as its contrary to the principles laid down in Nitisha judgment and the policy framework enunciated by the Army.” It was further decided that this kind of procedure violated Article 14 of the Indian Constitution, which establishes the fundamental principle of justice.