'How can there be two criteria based on gender?': Supreme Court slams 'arbitrariness' in appointment of women Army officers

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The Supreme Court on Wednesday strongly questioned the “arbitrariness” in how ‘criteria appointments’ for Short Service Commission (SSC) women officers were considered in comparison to their male counterparts, while examining their eligibility for Permanent Commission (PC).

A three-judge bench comprising Justices Surya Kant, Ujjal Bhuyan and N Kotiswar Singh lamented at the state of affairs and asked: “How can there be two criteria based on gender? Is there a different format for evaluating SSC women officers and male officers? Is this format different for SSC officers and those in permanent commission?”

Senior advocate Maneka Guruswamy, appearing for 13 women Army officers along with advocate Amrita Panda, argued that despite serving in the same postings and undergoing identical training, the appellants were casually graded. “This grading resulted from a subjective assessment conducted at a time when they were not eligible for Permanent Commission (PC). Unlike male officers, whose performance was continuously assessed with PC in mind, the Appellants’ ACRs froze in 2019, prior to this court’s ruling granting women eligibility for PC in 2020,” she submitted.

Justice N Kotiswar Singh asked bluntly whether this meant that for women officers, postings in difficult areas did not count for PC, while for men they did. Guruswamy confirmed: “Yes. Women officers, despite holding identical appointments, were issued ACRs which were ‘Non-Criteria Reports’, with no mention of the appointment being a ‘Criteria Appointment’, since they were not eligible for PC.”

She said that male officers’ records for such postings were treated as ‘Criteria Reports’,  explicitly marked as criteria appointments, which held greater weightage when considering PC. “However, unlike their male counterparts, their (women officers) ACRs did not reflect this as a ‘Criteria Appointment’,” she pointed out.

Among the officers represented by Guruswamy were Lt Col Vanita Padhi, who was posted with the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Congo and served as Company Commander in Firozpur (bordering Pakistan) during Operation Sindoor; Lt Col Chandni Mishra, the first woman pilot in 88 countries to fly the Manoeuvrable Expendable Aerial Target (MEAT); Lt Col Geeta Sharma, posted in high altitude areas including Ladakh and commanding communications for ‘Operation Galwan’; and Maj Khim, who served in Akhnoor near the Pakistan border.

Justice Surya Kant interjected during arguments, saying that such distinctions seemed to stem from “conservative thinking” and “perceptions” of certain senior officers in the Army. Guruswamy added that the officers were also denied pension and medical allowances, recalling how “one of the commanders, who brought the planes back from Balakot, was asked to leave a week later.”

The bench asked Guruswamy whether the method of considering ‘criteria appointments’ for women was arbitrary. She responded: “Yes. It is violative of Article 14 and Article 15 and hence, arbitrary. The fact that women officers are given these positions where there are border, contentious or fragile areas, means they trust the women officers, but would not give them permanent commission.”

The hearing, which remained inconclusive, will continue on Thursday. The bench said it would also hear similar pleas filed by Naval and Air Force officers aggrieved by denial of PC.

Notably, on August 6, the court had been informed that male and female officers in the Indian Army constituted “two unequal and distinct classes” and could not be considered for PC under the same standards or cut-off marks.

The women officers have relied upon the apex court’s landmark February 17, 2020 verdict, which had ruled that absolute exclusion of women from all posts other than staff assignments was indefensible. “An absolute prohibition of women SSC officers to obtain anything but staff appointments evidently did not fulfil the purpose of granting PC as a means of career advancement in the Army,” the top court had observed.

Since that ruling, the court has issued a series of directions on the issue of PC for women officers in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and even the Coast Guard.

With inputs from PTI