New Delhi : The Centre on Friday it will roll out the permanent commission option for all eligible women Army officers after the Supreme Court warned the forces of contempt.
An ANI report said the Centre further informed the apex court that it will take a decision within 10 days regarding the 11 women officers in the Army who had moved the SC regarding permanent commission.
After SC cautioned Army of contempt, Centre assures it'll roll out Permanent Commission option to all eligible women Army officers.
— ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2021
Centre tell SC that swift decision will be made within 10 days with regard to 11 women Army officers who approached SC for Permanent Commission. pic.twitter.com/HhikP1lBeW
Supreme Court Bench involving justice DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna heard the petition filed by the 11 officers who alleged the Army of non-compliance of the apex court’s orders. Army was denying them permanent commission despite fulfilling the eligibility criteria the officers said as mentioned by the top court.
According to a LiveLaw report, additional solicitor general of India Sanjay Jain said the court’s orders will be duly implemented and all the aggrieved women officers will be granted permanent commission subject to limitations stated in the previous judgement.
The bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna recorded that as regards the implementation of the directions contained in paragraph 120 of the aforesaid judgment, the present position as relayed by ASG Sanjay Jain and Senior Advocate R. Balasubramanian, for the Ministry of
Defence and the Indian Army, is as follows
(1) Out of the total of 72 WSSCOs (women short service commission officers) who were not considered for PC, 1 has opted for release
(2) Out of the 35 in contempt proceedings before the court, 21, on further review, have been granted PC, while 1 case is being considered on separate grounds
(3) As a result, 14 have been left out in the above process
(4) of these 14,3 were found unfit in terms of the criteria of para 120.
(5) The remaining 11 would be granted PC in 10 days
The ASG states that those officers whose cases are not before the court in these contempt proceedings and who meet the criteria in para 120 would be granted PC in 3 weeks”, recorded the bench.
“By way of abundant caution, it is clarified that those women officers who have disciplinary and vigiance clearance in terms of pars 120(2) would be eligible for the grant of PC subject to meeting the medical conditions stipulated in para 120, the bench added.
The Supreme Court had on October 22 directed the Centre to tender a statement in a tabulated form indicating reasons for the denial of permanent commission to 25 women officers, together with an affidavit expressly stating that no reasons independent of the directions issued by the Court have weighed in the grant/refusal of PC to the total 72 petitioners, “In other words, once the final judgment and order of this court has been pronounced, the consideration for the grant of PC has to be confined to the specific directions issued and not be based upon grounds independent of the judgment the bench had clarified
On Friday, Justice Chandrachud stated,” We are holding the army guilty of contempt. We are putting you on guard and we are recording a finding on this. The Army may be supreme in its authority by this constitutional court is also supreme in its jurisdiction. We gave you a very long rope. The reason we had asked you to submit an affidavit that PC has not been denied to any officer on grounds of any consideration other than what we had said in our judgment was to put on notice.”
The bench took note of the affidavit filed by Col. PK Singh, Ministry Secretary 7 at IHQ, MOD (Army) who had also discharged duty to the Special Selection Board 5 in September 2020; the affidavit contains the tabulated statement.
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