RED-FLAGGING a blow to the huge strides made for ensuring gender parity in the military in the past couple of decades is the inexplicable instance of a horribly skewed tilt in favour of men in the Army Dental Corps (ADC). The terms for recruiting dentists in 2022 made the process amenable for 90% reservation for male candidates, leaving only 10% of the posts for females. This was strange as till the batch before that, recruitment rules in the ADC had been gender-neutral. It forced some aggrieved women aspirants to move courts for relief.

Hearing one such case recently that was earlier heard by the Delhi High Court, the Supreme Court has rightly observed that depriving women of the opportunity to compete with men equally was not only against Article 15 of the Constitution but also amounted to ‘putting the clock in the reverse direction’. Betraying a baffling bias, this regressive step was sought to be ingeniously achieved by allowing male candidates scoring NEET-MDS rank of up to 2,394 to appear for the interview, while women with rank only till 235 were called. As noted by the SC, it meant that women 10 times more meritorious than men were being ignored. While directing the continuance of the status quo initially, the SC has now also ordered that interviews of the left-out women candidates who had petitioned the HC be conducted. Earlier, a dental surgeon from Punjab who had also applied for Short Service Commission in the ADC had approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court against this discriminatory policy. She pointed out that out of the 30 vacancies, the Army had reserved 27 seats for men in tune with 90% quota for them. The HC had directed that she be interviewed provisionally and the results of the ADC recruitment remain subject to the outcome of the petition.

It is frustrating that despite the stated policy of the government on gender parity in the tri-services, except in combat roles, and the apex court’s dressing-down to the armed forces for justifying the denial of equal opportunities with stereotypical arguments, women still have to resort to litigation to secure their rights.