New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Defence (MoD) has formed a selection board to consider the promotion of 246 women officers who joined the Army under the short service commission (SSC) scheme, but were absorbed as permanent officers on the directions of the Supreme Court.
The Centre told this to the apex court Tuesday, while it was hearing a petition filed by 34 women Army officers. These officers have accused the Narendra Modi government of overlooking them twice for promotions, while allowing junior male officers to supersede them.
Appearing before a bench led by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, MoD counsel and senior advocate R. Balasubramanian said the selection board would sit for 13 days – from 9 January to 22 January, 2023.
All women officers who joined the Army between 1992 and 2006 would be in the consideration zone for 150 additional vacancies in the colonel rank that were recently sanctioned by the Union Ministry of Finance, the bench was told.
Balasubramanian also assured the bench that male officers whose promotions were cleared in the last two selection boards would not receive their placements until the one scheduled exclusively for women in January finalised its list.
Taking note of the development, CJI Chandrachud’s bench on Tuesday deferred further hearing of the petition to 30 January.
This move by the MoD comes days after the women officers approached the apex court, claiming the decision to supersede them flies in the face of the Supreme Court’s 2020 judgement granting them permanent commission.
During a subsequent hearing, the court had voiced its concern over the flagrant disregard of its order and warned of consequences to the MoD.
On 9 December, when the matter was last heard, the bench said the ministry was not being fair to women officers and asked it to halt placement of male officers granted promotion in October.
“We feel like you have not been fair to these women officers. We will have to pass peremptory orders. You must get your house in order,” the bench had remarked.
At present there are 6,000 colonel posts in the Indian Army. The additional 150 new vacancies sanctioned would take up the number to 6,150.
Women officers expressed another apprehension before the bench on Tuesday. Their counsel senior advocate V. Mohana and lawyer Rakesh Kumar said the officers feared they would not be in the race for a command appointment since they were being considered against newly-sanctioned vacancies.
This would restrict them to staff appointment, which is an inferior post, they felt.
This, the counsel added, would be disobeying the 2020 SC ruling when it had specifically ordered that women officers would also be entitled to command appointment.
Speaking to ThePrint, Kumar said: “Male counterparts of these women officers were promoted on existing vacancies. Ideally, they should have got promoted much earlier and on the same lines as the male officers. However, the delay has affected their seniority because not just their batchmates but even junior male officers have got promoted.”
The bench promised the women officers that it would look into their concerns once the selection board was over. “Let this process carry on and we are seized of the matter. Once the results are known, we shall look into it,” the bench told the women officers present in the court.
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