The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Centre to grant permanent commission to 39 women officers, who joined the Army under the Short Service Commission on or before November 1, 2021.
The Bench of Justices Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and B V Nagarathna passed the order on the petitions filed by Nilam Gorwade of Sangli, Maharashtra, and others.
“We are of the view that the ends of justice would be met if, to begin with, orders for the grant of permanent commission are issued to all the 39
officers,” ruled presiding judge Chandrachud, stressing that "compliance shall be scrupulously ensured on or before 1 November 2021.”
In all, 36 women short service commission officers had approached the top court for initiating contempt proceedings against army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane and others, alleging violation of directions issued by it on March 25.
The Supreme Court has also sought detailed reasons for not granting permanent commission to 25 other women officers. During the hearing on Friday, ASG Sanjay Jain and senior advocate R Balasubramanian, appearing for the Centre, told the bench of that out of 72, only one officer had appealed for release from service and the government duly considered the other 71 cases. However, it found that only 39 of them were eligible for permanent commission. The Centre has said that out of the 71, seven are medically unfit while there are issues of serious indiscipline against 25 of the officers.
The Supreme Court had earlier given one last opportunity to the Centre to resolve the issue of granting permanent commission to the 72 Women Short Service Commission Officers.
The court had said the grant of PC should be with regard to its order of March 25 this year and thereafter it will close the contempt case filed by the women officers.
The court has further directed the Army to file an affidavit, before November 12 - the next date of hearing - expressly stating that no reasons independent of the directions in the March 25 judgment have “weighed in the grant or, as the case may be, refusal of PC to the officers concerned."
