SC dismisses women Army officers contempt plea over ‘discrimination in promotion’
A bench of Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala, Manoj Misra said it was satisfied that there was no breach
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a contempt petition filed by 30 women Army officers, who said that a special selection board that considered their promotion in January violated the court’s November 2023 order requiring them to be considered independent of those empaneled for promotion in January that year. The petitioners alleged discrimination vis-a-vis male officers in promotion as colonels.
A bench of Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said it was satisfied that there was no breach of the order. “It is not a case of contempt. Their [Army] case is that the empaneled officers were considered for benchmarking to assess inter-se merit. Our order of November 2023 was not silent on benchmarking. Inter-se merit has to be considered while empaneling officers. Without benchmarking, how can you empanel officers.”
The court allowed the petitioners to pursue another legal remedy by approaching the Armed Forces Tribunal.
Senior advocate Huzefa Ahmadi, who appeared for the petitioners, told the court that due to the process followed, out of the 150 vacancies earmarked for women officers, only 128 have been empaneled while 22 vacancies remain. “The idea is to accommodate as less women in the Army,” Ahmadi said.
Attorney-general R Venkataramani, appearing for the government, and senior advocate R Balasubramanian for the Army informed the court that the petitioners belong to the batches up to 2006. They added that the remaining 22 vacancies are for women officers of subsequent batches (2006-09)
“We cannot earmark these vacancies for you,” the bench told Ahmadi, pointing out that nothing will then remain for the subsequent batches. “These remaining 22 posts are only for women officers. While passing the November order, we were only worried that when we give you another bite at the cherry, those who already got empaneled should not be disturbed,” the court said.
Venkataramani said there is no exercise discriminating between male and female officers. “That perception is wrong.”
Col Sarika Pendalwar, the Army’s legal officer assisting the court in the matter, said that the cadre strength of the Army is fixed and additional vacancies beyond 150 posts cannot be created.
The petitioners argued at every stage they were forced to fight for parity with male officers despite getting an order from the court in their favour in February 2020 for the grant of permanent commission across non-combat streams.
“The respondents have conducted Special No. 3 Selection Board in [a] highly clandestine and unfair manner and failed to implement the order dated November 3, 2023, and they have even willfully disobeyed the expressed direction of this Court,” the contempt petition said.
It said that the Army was bound to allocate the batch-wise and year-wise vacancies and a minimum of one vacancy ought to have been given batch-wise and year-wise “...Considering already empaneled officers with non-empaneled officers was [a] violation of [the] principle of equality enshrined under Article 14 & 16(1) of the Constitution.”