The Centre and defence forces agreed to open the doors of the National Defence Academy (NDA), which has been a male bastion since its inception, for women aspirants, bringing to an end another gender wall within the defence establishment.
With the Supreme Court in its last hearing weighing against a discriminatory policy and passing an interim order allowing women candidates to appear in the NDA entrance examination, additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati informed a bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M M Sundresh that the government in principle agreed to allow entry of female candidates in the joint defence service training institute of the armed forces.
Bhati, who as an independent lawyer, had fought successfully for the rights of women officers in defence forces and convinced the court to grant them permanent commission and command posting, informed the bench she was happy to share that a decision had been taken at the highest level in the government on Tuesday to induct girls in the NDA and sought time to place it on record.
The bench appreciated the government and defence forces for taking a positive step to end gender discrimination but in the same breath expressed concern over the authorities not acting on their own and awaiting the court’s interference.
The bench said it was not a good state of affairs and the government and defence forces should on their own take the decision to bring more gender equality within the system. The court said it was compelled to pass an interim order to allow women aspirants to take the exam as the government had been taking an adversarial approach on the issue and opposing the plea instead of agreeing to consider it.
The ASG, however, told the bench that it would be difficult to implement the order this year itself as there is need to create infrastructure and also change procedures and pleaded that status quo be maintained with respect to the NDA admissions for the current academic year.
Her plea was opposed by the petitioners who informed the bench that application forms of women aspirants were not being accepted. The court after hearing all the sides, asked the ASG to place the decision before the bench within 10 days and that would examine it on the next date of hearing. “We cannot make a wholesome change in a day... There is complexity of issues involved with the armed forces and we are not oblivious of it. But we wanted to push them to consider it,” the bench said.
