Policy of 90 per cent reservation for men in Army Dental Corps comes under High Court scanner

Vijay Mohan

Chandigarh, October 17

The Army’s policy of reserving 90 per cent vacancies in the Army Dental Corps (ADC) for male candidates has come under the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s scrutiny.

A dental surgeon from Punjab, Dr Satbir Kaur, who had applied for Short Service Commission in the ADC has approached the High Court averring it to be a serious case of gender discrimination.

In her petition, she has pointed out that out of 30 total vacancies, the Army has reserved 27 seats for men and only three for women.

Issuing notice to the Central Government on her petition, the High Court’s Bench comprising Justice GS Sandhawalia and Justice Jagmohan Bansal has granted her interim relief by directing the authorities that she should be interviewed provisionally and the results of the recruitment shall remain subject to final outcome of the petition.

Clearing the National Eligibility and Entrance Test for Masters in Dental Sciences (NEET-MDS) is a qualifier for applying for ADC. While males till the NEET rank of 2,934 have been called for interviews in ADC, women only till the rank of 235 have been called.

The petitioner has pointed out that recruitment in ADC, which is permissible up to the age of 45 years, was gender-neutral till last year. Such recruitment where rules permit both males and females to join cannot be encumbered with reservation for men which is anyway not permissible under Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution of India, she contended.

The petition has further referred to recent judgments of the Supreme Court where the top court had come down heavily upon the defence services for contravening gender-parity based on stereotypical and regressive statements.

The Supreme Court had termed such statements as “baseless” and “disturbing”, and had directed equality in opportunity of employment in the defence services except in the combat arms.

The petitioner has averred that while the political executive and the bGovernment of India had always supported gender-parity in the military other than combat roles, the military authorities were contravening not only constitutional provisions but also judgments of the Supreme Court and official statements of the political executive.