The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that short service commission women officers (SSCWO) across India’s defence forces, denied permanent commission (PC) due to unfair evaluations and skewed appraisals, will receive pension benefits as a “one-time measure”. The SC bench used its extraordinary power under Article 142 of the Constitution. (HT_PRINT)
Using its extraordinary power under Article 142 of the Constitution, a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant said, “As a one-time measure, the appellants SSCWOs and the intervenor SSCWOs who have been released from service during the pendency of these proceedings, whether before the armed forces tribunal (AFT), the high court, before this court, or in the interregnum, shall be deemed to have completed substantive qualifying service of 20 years and shall be entitled to pension and all consequential benefits, except arrears of pay.”
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The court order came as a “one time measure” as pension benefits are only available to uniformed men and women on completion of 20 years of service. The court clarified that pension shall be fixed on the basis of the date of completion of the “deemed service” of 20 years. The SSCWOs shall be paid pension only with effect from January 1, 2025, the decision held.
For those continuing in service as a result of court orders, the bench held them to be eligible for grant of PC provided they have scored over 60% marks in the earlier selection boards, satisfy medical criteria and receive disciplinary and vigilance clearance.
The order (in the Army batch of matters) specified that the benefit of pension shall not extend to SSCWOs of the Judge Advocate General (JAG) and Army Education Corps (AEC) cadres, as they have been eligible for PC since 2010.
Similarly, in the Navy batch of matters, the court held that only those SSCWOs inducted prior to January 2009 were eligible for PC. Among those inducted into the Navy after January 2009, the court excluded Law, Education, and Naval Architecture where the benefit of PC already existed.
The order came in separate batches of petitions filed by Army, Navy and Air Force SSCWOs who belonged to the 2010 and 2011 batches and were considered for PC in the Selection Boards conducted in 2020 and 2021. The top court judgment that first paved the way for women to be considered for PC across all arms in the Army came in February 2020 in the Babita Puniya case. But by then, the damage was done for the petitioners in this case -- their annual confidential reports (ACR) were casually graded by superiors knowing that they were never in the zone of getting PC.
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Citing this disadvantage vis-a-vis male SSCOs, the bench, which also comprised justices Ujjal Bhuyan and N Kotiswar Singh said, “We find that the denial of PC to SSCWOs was not merely the outcome of individual assessments, but the consequence of a systemic framework rooted in assumptions that entrenched disadvantages in career progression.”
It said that the evaluative framework applied to assess performance of SSCWOs lacked the “depth and rigour” applied to their male counterparts and these assessments inevitably influenced their service records, comparative merit, and career progression. They even lost out on access to appointments and courses during their career.
Without disturbing the selections already made by the 2020 and 2021 selection boards, the bench allowed all SSCWOs who were aggrieved by the results of the selection boards convened after 2021 to pursue their remedies in accordance with law.
The court noted that in the Lt Col Nitisha case in March 2021, the court had highlighted the discriminatory yardsticks faced by SSCWOs and had flagged the need for making amends in the evaluation process. Reiterating its earlier direction, the order said, “The method of evaluation of ACRs and the cut-off must be reviewed for future batches, in order to examine the disproportionate impact on SSCWOs who became eligible for the grant of permanent commission in the subsequent years of their service.”
The court was dealing with petitions filed by 73 Army SSCOs, 25 Navy SSCOs and 6 Air Force SSCOs. While the majority of these were women, there were some male SSCOs who alleged that they were at a disadvantage due to the change in policy following the Babita Puniya judgment, which gave women an opportunity to vie for the PC posts, reducing the share for male officers.
They were represented by senior advocates Menaka Guruswamy, V Mohana along with advocates Rakesh Kumar, Pooja Dhar, and Tanya Shree among others, while senior advocate Rekha Palli assisted the court as amicus curiae.
The court said that the male SSCOs could not reasonably expect that “vacancies would remain exclusively male”, particularly once the exclusion of SSCWOs from consideration for PC was held to be unconstitutional and impermissible by the high court followed by Supreme Court.
The Centre produced confidential records before the court to show there was no discrimination in allotting marks to SSCWOs. Additional solicitor general (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati appearing for the Centre said that the criteria applied may appear to be one of “exclusion” but the policy of the Army in granting PC is to select the best and in keeping with the larger good of maintaining a young and motivated force, which requires officers to be mentally and physically strong.