In February 2020, the Supreme Court had upheld the decision of the Delhi High Court which (in 2011) had termed the non-availability of consideration for Permanent Commission to women in the Indian Defence Services as discriminatory and unconstitutional. While women were allowed to serve as Short Service Commissioned Officers with terms ranging from 5 to 14 years, they were not eligible to be considered for Permanent Commission which was available to male Short Service Commissioned Officers.
However, while implementing the ibid judgement, certain more anomalies had crept in whereby the official establishment at the time of consideration for Permanent Commission, deployed a criterion of selection which, the women officers argued, was again discriminatory and an attempt to avoid giving full effect to the judgement. The bone of contention was the criteria for Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs) and Medical Standards wherein the women, now in their 40s, were being adjudged on standards applicable for much younger officers.
Agreeing with the Petitioners, the Supreme Court of India has rendered another landmark judgement wherein besides dealing with the issue at hand it has gone into nuts and bolts of gender discrimination and has directed the government to take corrective measures. The Court has pointed out that all these anomalies and grey areas in cadre management have emerged because of delayed implementation of the High Court judgement which was rendered a decade back. When the government had challenged the High Court decision in the Supreme Court, its implementation was not stayed by the latter, yet the establishment did not implement it.
More on the judgement, and the judgement itself, can be found at this link (Live Law).
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