After granting permanent commission to women short service commission officers in Army, Navy and Air Force, Supreme Court on Monday decided to examine similar career opportunity to women short service agreement (SSA) officers in Indian Coast Guard while ordering interim reinstatement of a woman officer who was discharged in Dec 2023 after a 14-year stint.
A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra also ordered transfer of the petition by the woman SSA officer Priyanka Tyagi from Delhi high court, which had declined to grant interim relief to her while agreeing to examine the larger issue of PC for women in ICG, to Supreme Court saying it presented a national issue of gender equality.
In a virtual one-sided hearing of Tyagi's lawyer, senior advocate Archana Pathak Dave, the bench said when different branches of armed forces have granted PC to women short service commission officer, ICG cannot remain an outlier. "The petition needs to be heard given the broader constitutional mandate of Article 15 (prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth)," it said.
When attorney general R Venkataramani and additional solicitor general Vikramjit Banerjee attempted to convey the factual aspects of the denial of permanent commission to Tyagi, the bench said, "Look at the resistance you have for absorbing women in permanent commission in ICG, which must march with time."
(Courtesy:- The Times of India, 9 April 2024)
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