The Supreme Court recently came down heavily on the Union of India for reserving only 10 percent seats in the Army Dental Corps (ADC) for women candidates, noting that it was prima facie violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.
The order was passed by the Bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice Aravind Kumar on petitions challenging the Delhi High Court order that vacated a status quo ordered earlier by it on the results of ADC recruitment on account of gender discrimination.
Several women had moved various High Courts against the Union government deciding to reserve 90 per cent vacancies in the ADC for men.
The Apex Court observed that an anomalous situation had arisen due to such a stand, in which a male candidate who was 10 times less meritorious than a female candidate was permitted to appear in the selection process, while a female candidate who was 10 times meritorious than the male candidate was deprived from participating in the selection process.
The Bench, while ordering the status quo to continue, directed the Central government to conduct interviews of the left out candidates who had moved the various High Courts.
It further pulled up the Centre for permitting male candidates having rank till 2,394 to participate in the selection process, while the cut-off rank for female candidates was 235.
The Counsel representing the Government of India contended that this was based on various exigencies, which were peculiar to the Defence services.
The Bench rejected the argument on the grounds that depriving highly meritorious female candidates from participating in the selection process was like ‘putting the clock’ in reverse direction.
It further observed that the Union government, instead of giving preferential treatment to female candidates under Article 15 of the Constitution, was depriving a meritorious female to compete, while allowing a less meritorious male to participate in the selection process, thus violating Article 14 of the Constitution.
The Counsel appearing for the Centre submitted that it was willing to conduct the interviews of the present petitioners whose ranking in the NEET (MDS) – 2022 was much below 235.
While listing the matter for further hearing on May 3, the Apex Court ruled that the results of NEET (MDS) would be declared after holding of the interviews of female petitioners, the result of which were to be placed before this Court.
Advocates K Parameshwar, Navdeep Singh, MV Mukunda, Arti Gupta and Kanti appeared for the petitioners, while the Central government was represented by Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj, along with Advocates Rukhmini Bobde, Vatsal Joshi, PV Yogeswaran, Vinayak Sharma and Arvind Kumar Sharma.
(Case title: Gopika Nair vs Union of India)