Punjab & Haryana High Court seeks Central government response in plea against 90 percent reservation for men in Army Dental Corps

The Punjab & Haryana High Court has sought the Central government's response in a plea challenging 90 percent reservation extended to men in the Army Dental Corps (ADC) [Satbir Kaur v Union of India]..A division bench of Justice GS Sandhawalia and Justice Jagmohan Bansal directed that the petitioner in the case, a dental surgeon, shall be provisionally interviewed by the respondents and the recruitment would be subject to the final decision in the petition."Keeping in view the above, petitioner shall also be provisionally interviewed by the respondents. The recruitment process shall be subject to final decision of the writ petition," the interim order said..The petitioner submitted that out of the 30 vacancies advertised for the ADC, 27 were reserved for men while 3 were available to women candidates. This amounted to discrimination on the basis of gender, it was submitted..It was submitted that restricting the number of women candidates to 3 would be against the provisions of the Constitution under Articles 14, 15, 16 as well as the law laid down by Courts.To buttress this submission, reliance was placed on the case of Secretary, Ministry of Defence v Babita Puniya where the Supreme Cout held that Women Short Service Commission (SCC) officers were entitled to Permanent Commission on par with their male counterparts..It was also pointed out that in an earlier advertisement from May 2021, no such categorization was made."The age limit for applying for such posts is 45 years, and unlike certain arms other and services, even married persons can apply for the said appointments. In fact, women have served since the year 1888 in the medical services of the military in India, whereas, women were allowed to join other branches of the military only in the year 1992," the petitioner submitted..Relying on the information brochure, the petitioners pointed out that candidates were called for interview in the ratio of 1:10 and the final merit list for grant of SCC in the ADC would be passed on the basis of performance in the interview.Thus, it was submitted that only 30 women candidates were being called whereas 270 men were called for the interviews..The plea added that in the case at hand, discrimination was in the form of direct discrimination rather than indirect discrimination and was not only unconstitutional, but also regressive.The petitioner, therefore, challenged the legality of the reservation and prayed that the reservation stipulated in the notification be struck down for being unconstitutional..The counsel for the Central government informed the court that the 3 vacancies for women had been fixed keeping in view various factors including retirement of lady officers.The Court, however, sought a detailed response from the Centre and listed the case for further hearing on 13 December, 2022..Advocates Navdeep Singh, Jasneet Kaur and Ananya Sharma appeared for the petitioner while the Central government was represented by advocate Anita Balyan..[Read order]