Navy moves SC challenging order on women’s permanent commission
The Indian Navy moved the Supreme Court challenging an order of the Delhi high court asking it to grant permanent commission to 17 women officers who retired after their short service commission ended in 2006.
The Indian Navy moved the Supreme Court challenging an order of the Delhi high court asking it to grant permanent commission to 17 women officers who retired after their short service commission ended in 2006.
The special leave petition was filed on October 26, hours after defence minister Manohar Parrikar said the Navy would challenge the order. On September 4, the Delhi HC allowed a batch of petitions seeking permanent commission for women in the force, saying “sexist bias and service bias would not be allowed to block progress of women”.
Parrikar said that the Navy in 2008 had opened its doors in SSC for granting permanent commission to women, along with men. He said that permanent commission for SSC was not an option even for men prior to that.
“There is no gender bias...It was equal for both men and women. In 2008, the Navy granted SSC to be changed to permanent commission to women in three streams — education, law and naval constructions. The other areas have some logistics and infrastructure problems as those are executive branches,” Parrikar had said.
“The order has two-three issues for which we are approaching the SC because we want to give almost equal status to women in all areas wherever possible, subject to training limitations, logistics and infrastructure capabilities,” he added.