SC refuses to entertain plea seeking 50% reservation for women in National Defence Academy
"Not possible to immediately have 50% of the seats for women", the Top Court said.
The Supreme Court last week refused to entertain a plea filed by an aspirant to reserve fifty per cent of seats in the National Defence Academy for women.
A division bench of Justices SK Kaul and Aravind Kumar noted that the petitioner did not obtain the requisite merit in the women category though in overall merit she would have more marks than some of the men candidates who would be admitted.
The bench observed that the larger issue was being examined by the Supreme Court already and the opening for women candidates has to occur over a period of time.
Court thus said,
"...it is not possible to immediately have 50% of the seats for women and this issue is already being examined by us in W.P.(c) No.1416/2020 to see how best the ultimate objective is achieved."
The Supreme Court further said that any one more petition to the list would not in any way assist the Court and thus though it had sympathy for the petitioner, in the present scenario it was not possible for it to give any relief.
But, on the petitioner's request that the petition be listed with the pending matter for giving her an opportunity to assist the Court, the bench directed thus,
"List along with W.P.(C) No.1416/2020."
Notably, in August 2021 the Supreme Court had allowed female candidates to appear for NDA exam, scheduled for September 5, 2021 while calling out the policy of not allowing women in NDA - gender discriminatory.
A month later, in September 2021, Centre had informed Supreme Court that women will be inducted in the Permanent Commissions through NDA & Naval Academy.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) had thus filed an affidavit at the supreme court stating that the necessary mechanism to recruit women cadets in the permanent commissions will be in place by May 2022.
The affidavit had further stated that considering the timeline, necessary arrangements need to be made to the infrastructure of the National Defence Academy (NDA) to ensure smooth induction and seamless training of women candidates.
According to the affidavit, while medical standards for male cadets is already in place, they need to be formulated for women cadets in consultation with the defence services and the Director General of Armed Forces Medical Services.
Case Title: NIDHI CHAUDHARY vs. UNION OF INDIA & ANR.