11 women Army officers move SC again for permanent commission
New Delhi, Jan. 23: Eleven women Army officers have moved the Supreme Court seeking compliance of its February last year directions to the Centre for grant of permanent commission, promotions and consequential benefits to them “in an inclusive, fair, just and reasonable manner”.
In a plea, Lieutenant Colonel Ashu Yadav and 10 other women Army officers alleged that the directions were not being complied with in “letter and spirit”.
The procedures for grant of permanent commission is “vitiated with arbitrariness, unfairness and unreasonableness”, they alleged in the petition, which is scheduled to be taken up for hearing by a bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud on January 27.
“The respondent institution is not leaving any possibility of thrusting their stand of unequal treatment to the women officers indirectly by trapping them into technical and procedural formalities and consequential denial of their rights,” it said.
The conduct of the Centre suggests that it is “playing a psychological
IN A plea, Lieutenant Colonel Ashu Yadav and 10 other women Army officers alleged that the directions were not being complied with in ‘letter and spirit’. The procedures for grant of permanent commission is ‘vitiated with arbitrariness, unfairness and unreasonableness’, they alleged in the petition.
warfare with these women officers” to avoid every possibility of granting them the benefits of permanent commission, promotion and consequential benefits, which is in clear violation of the order dated February 17, 2020, the plea said.
“Hence, it is most humbly prayed before this court to direct the respondent institution to determine a fair, rational road map and a well-reasoned policy for women officers on all the aspects, including grant of Col (Colonel) TS (time scale) rank and long outstanding financial dues, so as to promote inclusiveness rather than elimination techniques,” it said.
The plea challenged the general instructions, dated August 1, 2020, regarding the requisites of Special Board-5 (SB-5) for grant of permanent commission to short service commissioned (SSC) women officers.
It has also challenged the absence of any policy for organising the SB-3 board which is the promotion board for women officers who will be approved by the permanent commission board.
The plea also questioned the terms regarding substantive promotion by time scale on the rank of Colonel to women officers after completing 26 years of reckonable service in light of the terms of a notification dated December 21, 2004.
Pointing out the shortcomings of the SB-5 board criterion, the women officers said that the general instructions of August 1 last year, “are a set of arbitrary norms/criterion and pre-requisites, for the consideration of women officers by the SB-5 board that is the board for granting permanent commission”. It said that the medical criterion laid down in the general instructions is inconsistent with the basic tenets of equality as laid down in Article 14 of the Constitution of India.