Centre Issues Order Granting Permanent Commission To Women Officers In Indian Army

NEW DELHI: The Indian Army on Thursday, July 23 said the government has issued an order for grant of permanent commission of women officers in the force. The Defence Ministry has issued the formal letter sanctioning the grant of Permanent Commission (PC) for women officers.

Army Spokesperson Col Aman Anand said the government order paved the way for empowering of women officers to shoulder larger roles in the Army.

"The order specifies grant of permanent commission to Short Service Commissioned (SSC) women officers in all 10 streams of the Indian Army," he said.

Col Anand said the 10 streams where permanent commission of women officers are being made available include army air defence, signals, engineers, army aviation, electronics and mechanical engineers, army service corps and Intelligence corps in addition to the existing streams of judge and advocate general and army educational corps.

"Their selection board will be scheduled as soon as all affected SSC women officers exercise their option and complete requisite documentation," he said.

Earlier, the Supreme Court on July 7 granted one more month to the Centre to implement its verdict directing that permanent commission be given to all serving SSC women officers in the Army. A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra said the Centre will have to comply with all the directions in the verdict.

The Centre had told the bench that decision making on the issue is at a final stage and only formal orders remain to be issued.

In a landmark verdict on February 17, the top court had directed that women officers in the Army be granted permanent commission and command postings, rejecting the Centre's stand of their physiological limitations as being based on "sex stereotypes" and "gender discrimination against women".

It had directed the Centre that within three months, all serving Short Service Commission (SSC) women officers have to be considered for Permanent Commission (PC) irrespective of them having crossed 14 years or, as the case may be, 20 years of service.