Claiming that its order granting Permanent Commission to women in the army’s non-combat support units on par with the male counterparts was not implemented well, many Women Army officers have approached the Supreme Court.
About the Petition
A petition was filed in the Supreme Court by Advocate on Record Archana Pathak Dave and a woman officer Chitrangada Rastravara, seeking immediate direction to implement the February 2020 order. The petition exclusively accessed by the ANI read that as far as the procedural aspects are concerned to date there are certain ambiguities that the army has not addressed.
Rastravara while addressing the ANI said that in February 2020 the Supreme Court had made it very clear that The Central Government would give all benefits to women officers, like Permanent Commission, promotion, and all benefits irrespective of the number of years they have served.
Despite the top court’s ruling rather than including the woman officers in the institution as per the intent of the directions given by the Supreme Court, the implementation was only done to eliminate the woman officers from the army.
This case is about the woman officers who have not been given their due of PC despite the long legal battle of a decade it has not become a reality. This is because of the lack of clear policy about the procedure adopted to assess women officers and the arbitrary procedures added by the army without any basis.
Rastravara also said that today women officers are still fighting Gender stereotypes in the army and thus sought the Supreme Court’s intervention to direct the enforcement of its order in both letter and spirit.
The arbitrary benchmark of scoring above the lowest benchmark of the male officer of a parallel-group is a parameter that was never applied before thus affecting the morale of these woman officers.
She added that out of 615 women in the Army only 422 were eligible and found fit for PC but in reality, only 277 out of the 422 have been granted the PC. The remaining 145 officers are those who are non-opted or those whose results have been withheld due to medical and administrative reasons. Rastravara claims that the number 422 is only for good optics and thus does not portray the actual number.
These petitions are to come to the Supreme Court for hearing today, January 27th.
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