SC grants permanent commission to woman Army officer

New Delhi : In a relief to a woman Army officer, the Supreme Court on Monday granted her permanent commission saying she was wrongly excluded from the consideration when other similarly placed officers were given the benefit.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan, while illustrating, ob-served that thoughts on conditions of service and job perquisites would be last in the minds of valiant Indian soldiers bravely guarding the frontiers at Siachen or in other difficult terrains.

“Will it be fair to tell them that they will not be given relief even if they are simi-larly situated, since the judgment they seek to rely on was passed in the case of certain applicants alone who moved the court? We think that would be a very unfair scenario,” the bench said. It said accepting the stand of the re-spondents in this case would result in the apex court putting its imprimatur on an “unreasonable stand” adopted by the authorities.

The apex court delivered its verdict on an appeal filed by a woman officer, who is posted as Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Dental Corps at Agra, challenging a January, 2022 order of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) Regional Bench, Lucknow. Observing she had had a distinguished service, the bench exercised its plenary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution and directed the grant of permanent commission to her.

“We direct that the appellant’s case be taken up for grant of permanent com-mission and she be extended the benefit of permanent commission with effect from the same date the similarly situated persons who obtained benefits pur-suant to the judgment dated January 22, 2014... of the Principal Bench of the AFT,” the bench said. She moved the top court challenging the January, 2022 order declining her prayer for reliefs similar to the ones granted by the Janu-ary, 2014 verdict of the AFT principal bench.

The bench noted that in March 2008, she was commissioned as a short ser-vice commissioned officer in the Army Dental Corps and the regulation, as it then stood, entitled her to three chances for taking up the departmental exam-ination for permanent commission.

It further noted the regulation also provided extension of age limit.

The bench said on March 20, 2013, amendments were carried out as a result of which the officer was deprived of her third chance since the extension was capped at 35 years and was confined to those who were in receipt of PG qual-ification of Masters in Dental Surgery on and from March 20, 2013. The wom-an officer informed the bench that similarly-placed officers, who were also not given an opportunity to appear for the clinical test and interview, in view of the amendment, moved applications before the AFT principal bench.