New Delhi: In a resolute affirmation of gender equality within the armed forces, the Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the Union Government's Miscellaneous Application (MA) seeking modifications to its August 2024 judgment. The Court refused to dilute the directive that mandates at least 50% of vacancies in the Indian Army's Judge Advocate General (JAG) branch be allotted to women.
The Bench, comprising Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Manmohan, admonished the Centre for attempting to relitigate a decided matter, observing that excluding women from core legal roles in the military is akin to "fighting with one hand tied behind your back."
The dispute stems from the landmark judgment in Arshnoor Kaur v. Union of India (August 2024), where the Supreme Court struck down the Army's discriminatory recruitment policy that capped women's intake in the JAG branch. To rectify decades of exclusion, the Court had directed that future vacancies must be shared equally (50:50) between men and women, with a crucial caveat: women could exceed 50% if they were more meritorious, but could not fall below it.
The Union Government filed an MA arguing that this "rigid" 50% floor created practical difficulties in cadre management and conflicted with the concept of "merit" if sufficient suitable women candidates were not available.
During the hearing, the Bench expressed strong displeasure at the government's hesitation. Justice Manmohan, who authored the original judgment, clarified that the 50% rule was a "beneficial policy" designed to ensure that the government's own stated goal of gender parity was not defeated by technicalities.
Addressing the Union's counsel, the Court remarked:
"It is not a half-baked judgment; we have thought it through... You have to bring them in; you can't have 50% of the population not participating in warfare. You can't fight with 50% of the population; it's like fighting with your hands tied behind your back."
The Union argued that if fewer women qualified on pure merit, the 50% mandate would force the Army to compromise on standards. The Court dismantled this argument by explaining the dual-layered protection:
- If women are less than 50% by merit: The quota ensures they still get half the seats to correct historical imbalance.
- If women are more than 50% by merit: They are entitled to capture more seats in the open category.
Justice Manmohan noted, "If we made it entirely merit-based [without the floor]... then the beneficial policy of yours would not have been given effect to." This rejection signals the Supreme Court’s zero-tolerance approach towards "judicial defiance" in gender justice cases.