The Supreme Court Monday
expressed happiness that the Centre has implemented its verdict to consider
granting permanent commission to women officers in the Army, saying, “it is the
victory of our nation that women aspire to achieve the highest pedestal.”
The top court, in its landmark
verdict delivered on February 17, had asked the Centre to consider, all serving
Short Service Commission (SSC) women officers for permanent commission
irrespective of them having crossed 14 years or, as the case may be, 20 years
of service.
The observations came from a
bench comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud, Indu Malhotra and Indira Banerjee
during the hearing of an another case being represented by senior advocate R
Balasubramanian who happened to be a lawyer for the Centre in the matter related
to grant of permanent commission to women officers.
Balasubramanian said the
judgement has been implemented and nearly 70 per cent women officers have
received the permanent commission.
Justice Chandrachud, who had
authored the February 17 verdict, said. “It is the victory of our nation that
women aspire to achieve the highest pedestal.”
“It is a great feeling even for
us as judges”, the judge said, adding that nearly 450 women officers have got
the permanent commission.
Permanent commission has been
granted to Short Service Commissioned officers in all the ten streams of the
Indian Army including Army Air Defense (AAD), Signals, Engineers and Army
Aviation.
The top court, in its judgement,
had also said that as a one-time measure, the benefit of continuing in service
until the attainment of 20 years pensionable service shall also apply to all
the existing SSC officers with more than fourteen years of services.
It had held that the option of
grant of permanent commission shall be given to all women SSC officers and if
those with more than 14 years of service do not opt for it then they will be
entitled to continue in service until they attain 20 years of pensionable
services.
While granting permanent
commission to women officers in Army, it had rejected the Centre’s stand of
their physiological limitations as being based on “sex stereotypes” and “gender
discrimination against women”.
The top court had accepted the
Centre’s policy of February 25, 2019 to grant permanent commission to SSC women
officers in all the 10 streams in the Indian Army.
The top court had said SSC women
officers with over 20 years of service who are not granted PC shall retire on
pension in terms of policy decision.
It had noted that Indian Army has
sanctioned 50,266 posts for officers, while the posts currently occupied are
40,825 including 1,653 by women officers.
It had noted that there is a
shortage of 9,441 officers in the Indian Army.