Evaluation criteria for PC to women Army officers resulted in systemic discrimination: Supreme Court

In a strong observations, the top court said structures of our society has been created by males for males

The Supreme Court on Thursday declared the evaluation criteria set by the Army for considering women officers for permanent commission, as discriminatory which disproportionately impacted them vis-à-vis their male counterparts.

"The pattern of evaluation of women officers... resulted in indirect and systemic discrimination. This has caused an economic and psychological harm and an affront to their dignity," a bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and M R Shah said.

In strong observations, Justice Chandrachud, who on February 17, 2020 authored the judgement, allowing permanent commission to women officers, again wrote we must recognise here that the structures of our society have been created by males and for males. So, certain structures that may seem to be the “norm” and may appear to be harmless, are a reflection of the insidious patriarchal system.

"It is not enough to proudly state that women officers are allowed to serve the nation in the Armed Forces, when the true picture of their service conditions tells a different story. A superficial sense of equality is not in the true spirit of the Constitution and attempts to make equality only symbolic," the bench added.

The court also expressed its anguish that the Ministry of Defence and Army failed to implement the Delhi High Court's 2010 on permanent commission, though there was no stay on its operation. This resulted in conundrum on the applicability of the medical criterion to officers who are 40-50 years old.

In its 137-page judgement on a batch of petitions filed by Lt Col Nikita and others, the court said a retrospective application of the supposedly uniform standards for grant of permanent commission must be modulated to compensate for the harm that has arisen over their belated application.

It held as "arbitrary and irrational" the administrative requirement imposed by the Army authorities benchmarking the women officers with the officers lowest in merit in the corresponding male batch.

The court directed that all women officers who have fulfilled the cut-off grade of 60% in the Selection Board held in September 2020 would be entitled to permanent commission, subject to them meeting the medical criteria prescribed on August 1, 2020.

The bench clarified that the women officers who were in the 5th or 10th year of service and met the medical criterion after the one year period of stabilisation, would also be eligible for grant of permanent commission.

Commending the women officers who have remained in service with the tenacity to hold on, the bench said, "A career in the Army comes with a serious set of trials and tribulations of a transferable service with postings in difficult terrains, even in times of peace. This is rendered infinitely more difficult when society relegates functions of domestic labour, care-giving and childcare exclusively on the shoulders of women."