Permanent commission for 32 women ex short service commission officer

Subject :Polity

Context:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Centre and the Indian Air Force to consider granting Permanent Commission to 32 retired women Short Service Commission officers based on their suitability with the purpose of giving them pensionary benefits.

What is the issue:

The Supreme Court, in exercise of power under Article 142 of the Constitution, directed the Indian Air Force to consider 32 Women Short Service Commission Officers in the present batch of appeals, who were released from service between December, 2006 and December, 2009 and were not considered for grant of Permanent Commission for grant of one-time pensionary benefits deeming that they have completed 20 years of service.
The relief was granted following the logic applied by the Apex Court in its judgment in Secretary, Ministry of Defence v. BabitaPoonia.
The bench said the women IAF officers, if found eligible by the IAF for grant of permanent commission, will be entitled to grant of one-time pensionary benefit from the date when they would have completed 20 years in service if it had continued.

What is Permanent Commission and Short Service Commission:

A Permanent Commission means a career in the army till retirement.
For Permanent Commission, the entry is through National Defence Academy (NDA), Pune, Indian Military Academy (IMA), Dehradun and OTA, Gaya.
While Short Service Commission is for 10 years, with the option of either leaving or opting for Permanent Commission at the end of 10 years.
If an officer doesn’t get Permanent Commissionthen, the officer can choose a four-year extension.

Women’s Entry in Armed Forces:

The induction of women into the officer cadre and their training was undertaken by the Officers Training Academy (OTA) in 1992.
They were commissioned for a period of five years in certain chosen streams such as Army Education Corps, Corps of Signals, Intelligence Corps, and Corps of Engineers.
Recruits under the Women Special Entry Scheme (WSES) had a shorter pre-commission training period than their male counterparts who were commissioned under the Short Service Commission (SSC) scheme.
In 2006, the WSES scheme was replaced with the SSC scheme, which was extended to women officers. They were commissioned for a period of 10 years, extendable up to 14 years.
Serving WSES officers were given the option to move to the new SSC scheme, or to continue under the erstwhile WSES.
They were , however, restricted to roles in streams specified earlier which excluded combat arms such as infantry and armoured corps.

What was Supreme Court earlier verdict:

In a landmark verdict on February 17, 2020, the top court had directed that women officers in the Army be granted permanent commission, rejecting the Centre’s stand on their “physiological limitations” as being based on “sex stereotypes” and “gender discrimination against women”.
The apex court had directed that within three months all serving SSC women officers have to be considered for permanent commission irrespective of them having completed 14 years or, as the case may be, 20 years of service.