The Supreme Court has invalidated an Indian Army policy that restricted the number of women officers eligible for appointment to the Judge Advocate General (JAG) branch, ruling that merit, not gender, must be the basis for selection.
A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Manmohan held that bifurcating vacancies by gender and reserving a larger share for men violated the fundamental right to equality. The Court observed that the policy’s provision for only three posts for women compared to double that number for men failed to meet constitutional standards.
“The Executive cannot restrict numbers and/or make reservation for male officers under the guise of induction by way of policy or administrative instructions,” the bench said. It noted that under Section 12 of the Army Act, 1950, women are permitted to join branches like the JAG, whose primary function is to provide legal advice to the Army.
The judges stressed that the selection criteria and testing parameters for men and women officers in the JAG branch are identical, and that their conditions of service do not differ. In light of this, the Court directed the Union Government to allocate 50% of JAG vacancies to women, remarking, “No nation can be secured by only one half of its population.”
The decision is seen as a landmark step toward gender parity in the armed forces, aligning with the Court’s previous rulings expanding opportunities for women in the military.
