Stand of Central government violative of Article 14: Supreme Court on only 10% seats reserved for women in Army Dental Corps

The Supreme Court recently held that providing only 10 per cent of seats in the Army Dental Corps (ADC) for women candidates is prima facie violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. (Gopika Nair v. Union of India).A Bench of Justices BR Gavai and Aravind Kumar was hearing a challenge to a Delhi High Court order that had vacated a “status quo” ordered by it earlier on the ADC recruitment results on account of gender discrimination claimed by candidates.This, after a number of petitioners had moved various High Courts against the move of the Central government to reserve 90 per cent vacancies in the ADC for men."We find that an anomalous situation has arisen due to such a stand. Whereas a male candidate who is 10 times less meritorious than a female candidate is permitted to appear in the selection process, a female candidate who is 10 times meritorious than a male candidate is deprived from being participating in the selection process," the order stated..Though the apex court has ordered for the status quo to continue, it also ordered the conduct of the interviews of the left out candidates who had moved the High Courts..The Court also noted that male candidates who have rank till 2,394 are permitted to participate in the selection process, while the cut-off rank for female candidates was 235..Rejecting the stand of the Government of India that this was on the ground of various exigencies which are peculiar to the defence services, the Court stated that the aspect in the present selection process, where only 10 per cent seats are reserved for female candidates, was violative of Article 14..It took the prima facie view that depriving highly meritorious female candidates from participating in the selection process "is putting the clock in reverse direction". "Leave aside giving preferential treatment to the female as envisaged under Article 15 of the Constitution of India, the stand of the respondent-Union of India is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India, inasmuch as it deprives a meritorious female to compete and permits much less meritorious male to participate in the selection process," the order went on to state. .The Central government had submitted that it was willing to conduct the interviews of the present petitioners whose ranking in the NEET (MDS) - 2022 is much below 235.The top court has now ordered that the results of NEET (MDS) can be declared after the interviews of the female petitioners are conducted and the results are placed before the Bench..The matter will be heard next on May 3..The petitioners were represented by Advocates K Parameshwar, Navdeep Singh, MV Mukunda, Arti Gupta and Kanti.Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj, along with Advocates Rukhmini Bobde, Vatsal Joshi, PV Yogeswaran, Vinayak Sharma and Arvind Kumar Sharma appeared for the Central government..[Read Order]