The Supreme Court on Wednesday passed an interim order to allow women to take the admission exam to National Defence Academy (NDA), even as the Centre said women cannot claim violation of any fundamental right for being denied entry as the male cadets trained there do not have any automatic advantage in future career advancement prospects over the women whose only route to enter the Army is by recruitment through short service commission.
The result would be subject to final adjudication of the petitions. A division bench comprising Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Hrishikesh Roy passed the interim order in a writ petition filed by Kush Kalra seeking permission for women candidates to appear for the NDA exam.
While issuing the order, the court criticised the Army for not permitting women to take part in the NDA exam. When the Army’s counsel submitted that it is a policy decision, the top court said that the said policy decision was based on “gender discrimination”.
The present public interest petition raises the issue of violation of Articles 14, 15, 16 and 19 of the Constitution of India by denying the opportunity to eligible and willing female candidates to join the National Defence Academy and afford them a chance to enrol, train and develop themselves in the National Defence Academy into future leaders of the Indian Armed Forces.
According to the petitioner, the eligible and willing female candidates are being denied the opportunity of entry to the National Defence Academy on the basis of their sex, thereby systematically and categorically excluding eligible female candidates the opportunity to train at the premier joint training institute of the Indian Armed Forces which, at a later point of time, becomes a hurdle in the career advancement opportunities for Female Officers in the Armed Forces.
The plea has stated that the act of the respondents to categorically exclude eligible and willing female candidates from appearing for the National Defence Academy and Naval Academy Examination over the years, solely on the ground of sex, is a violation of the Fundamental Right of Equality before the Law and Equal Protection of the law.
On its part, the Centre in an affidavit said the NDA is only one of the various modes of entries for recruitment in the Indian Armed Forces, pointing out that in the Army, on an average 1,470 officers are commissioned which includes 670 officers from Indian Military Academy (IMA) and NDA apart from Officers Training Academy (OTA) where both men and women officers are commissioned through UPSC and non-UPSC modes. Apart from this, on an average, 453 officers (men and women) are commissioned as Short Service Commissioned officers through SSC (Non-Technical) and SSC (Technical) through UPSC.
The affidavit said, “Training at the NDA does not give any automatic advantage to male cadets over their counterparts from other training establishments / institutions. It has no bearing on the future career advancement prospects.” It suggested that choice of training at any equivalent training academy cannot be a violation amounting to discrimination based on gender under Article 14, 15, 16 or 19 of the Constitution.
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