NEW DELHI – In a landmark judgment reinforcing gender equality in the armed forces, the Supreme Court of India has ruled that the Army’s practice of reserving six out of nine Judge Advocate General (JAG) branch vacancies for men is unconstitutional. The court declared that all appointments must be based on merit, without any gender-based caps.
A bench comprising Justices Dipankar Datta and Manmohan held that once women had been permitted entry into the JAG cadre under Section 12 of the Army Act, 1950, the Army and Union government could not impose a ceiling on their intake.
“No nation can be secure when half of its population is held back,” the bench observed, emphasising that the true meaning of gender neutrality is the selection of all meritorious candidates, regardless of gender.
Petitioners Outranked Male Candidates
The verdict stemmed from petitions filed by two women who had ranked fourth and fifth overall in the 2023 JAG recruitment but were excluded due to gender-based allocation. One petitioner, Arshnoor Kaur, scored 447 marks—exceeding the 433 scored by the third-ranked male candidate—yet was denied selection. The court ordered her immediate induction into the next training course, calling her exclusion a case of “indirect discrimination” in violation of constitutional guarantees of equality and equal opportunity.
The second petitioner, Astha Tyagi, who scored 477 marks, received no further relief as she had since joined the Indian Navy.
Policies Without Legal Backing
Rejecting the Army’s reliance on “extent of induction” guidelines from 2011 and 2012, the court found these lacked statutory authority and could not override the legal provision permitting women into the branch.
While the 2023 recruitment policy set a minimum 50% quota for women to redress historical underrepresentation, it also capped their share at that figure. The bench found this “neutral in form but discriminatory in practice”, noting that women candidates had often outperformed their male counterparts. In one example, a male candidate ranked sixth in the men’s list scored fewer marks than a woman ranked tenth in the women’s list, yet the man was selected and the woman was not.
Common Merit List for All
The court ruled that male and female JAG officers form a single cadre, undergo identical training, and are assessed on the same criteria. It directed that future recruitments be conducted from a single merit list, with all marks published.
“If all deserving candidates happen to be women, all of them must be selected,” the judgment stated, adding that merit-based selection would enhance the branch’s efficiency.
The Army’s argument that JAG officers serve as a combatant reserve and that women are not deployed in certain operational roles was dismissed. The bench pointed to existing policies placing women’s field training and deployments on par with men, including service in airborne units, convoy command in high-risk zones, and UN peacekeeping combat missions.
A Step Towards True Gender Neutrality
The judgment reiterated that restricting women to a fixed share of vacancies perpetuates historical discrimination and undermines merit. It called for full integration based on capability, not gender, adding:
“If women can pilot Rafale jets, operate behind enemy lines, and command in high-risk zones, there is no reason they cannot serve in a peace-location legal branch.”
Quoting Bill Gates’ remark that “people feared electricity when it was invented”, the court noted that resistance to change cannot justify discrimination. Women, it stressed, were not asking for special treatment — only an equal chance to compete.
