Bengaluru The exclusion of married daughters of ex-service personnel from getting dependant cards is violative of Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution, the Karnataka high court ruled in an order passed earlier this week.
A single judge bench of justice M Nagaprsanna, hearing a petition filed by woman, Priyanka Patil, daughter of Subedar Ramesh Khandappa Police Patil, who was killed in action, struck down guideline 5(c) of the Sainik Welfare Board guidelinesand held it violative of the Constitution.
“If the son remains a son, married or unmarried; a daughter shall remain a daughter, married or unmarried. If the act of marriage does not change the status of the son; the act of marriage cannot and shall not change the status of a daughter,” the bench ruled in an order dated January 2.
Guidelines of the defence ministry allow identity cards to be issued to sons till they turn 25 or cease to be dependents (whichever is earlier) or remain unemployed due to lifetime disability. However, a daughter who gets married before turning 25 becomes ineligible for the benefit.
“If the ex-servicemen had sons, marriage would not have made any difference. It is, for this reason, the guideline falls foul of the tenets of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. The guideline is a depiction of gender stereotypes which existed decades ago, and if permitted to remain would be an anachronistic obstacle in the march towards women’s equality,” the court said.
{{/usCountry}}“If the ex-servicemen had sons, marriage would not have made any difference. It is, for this reason, the guideline falls foul of the tenets of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. The guideline is a depiction of gender stereotypes which existed decades ago, and if permitted to remain would be an anachronistic obstacle in the march towards women’s equality,” the court said.
{{/usCountry}}It added that the term used in the nomenclature of the guidelines is “ex-servicemen”. Hence, it is for the Union or the state government to address this imperative need for changing the nomenclature wherever it depicts “ex-servicemen” to that of “ex-service personnel”, the court said.
“..Therefore, women have a role to play in the Forces, be it the Army, the Navy or the Air force. These are not the times when women have no role to play at all. Therefore, the word ‘men’ in the title, a part of the word ex-servicemen, would seek to demonstrate a misogynous posture of an age-old masculine culture. Therefore, the title wherever reads as ex-servicemen in the annals of the policymaking of the government, be it the Union or the State concerned, should be made ‘gender neutral’,” it said in the order.
Priyanka Patil, the daughter of the former Madras Engineer Group (MEG) Subedar, who was 10 years old when her father died, approached the Karnataka high court in 2021 over the refusal by the Sainik Welfare Board to issue a dependent card to her because she was married.
She sought to be identified as the daughter of a former defence personnel to avail 10% reservations made by the Karnataka government for the kin of ex-service personnel during the recruitment of assistant professors in government degree colleges in the state in 2020, but was denied the card owing to distinction in the Sainik Welfare rules between married and unmarried daughters.