New DelhiCol. Leena Gurav has been fighting a lone battle in the Indian Army for more than 16 years to break the glass ceiling for women.
From fighting for permanent commission to promotion to posting, Gurav has gone to court 13 times to claim that it is his right under the rules. And she has come back victorious on 12 occasions.
His thirteenth round of fighting relates to his promotion to the rank of brigadier. If successful, she will head the Army’s Judge Advocate General (JAG) branch, which deals with legal and disciplinary matters – a rare feat for any female officer serving in the forces.
Hearing the matter on October 18, the Supreme Court (SC) noted that the Army’s “ambiguity in policy” with regard to vacancies for the post of Brigadier led to litigation and that it was asked to redistribute the number of vacancies on the basis of instructed to determine. Existing policy and norms.
When asked about the matter, Army sources declined to comment saying the matter was sub-judice.
Speaking to ThePrint, Gurav’s lawyer Sudhanshu Pandey said the army officer was forced to approach the court throughout his career to get “fair and non-discriminatory treatment”.
In 10 of his 13 cases, he fought twice for promotion to permanent commission and once for posting. His trial history also includes going back to court when earlier orders were not enforced.
Former army officer Amit Kumar, who took voluntary retirement and is now a lawyer by profession, told ThePrint that Gaurav’s case shows there is a “conservative mindset” about women officers in the armed forces.
“The tussle for promotion in the Army is not new, but Gurav’s case is extraordinary. He has to fight in court for every promotion,” Kumar said.
He said that the fact that he is a trained lawyer helped him to strategize his legal battle.
Kumar said that while other women officers have also approached the courts because they were discharged from service without any apparent reason or to fight for permanent commission on fulfilling the eligibility criteria, such cases are not common, Kumar said. “Not every woman officer should be legally competent to approach the court,” he said.
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‘Systemic discrimination’
A lawyer by training, Gurav joined the Army’s JAG wing in 1996, and made news in 2014 When she became the first woman officer to receive the rank of colonel in an army branch other than the medical corps.
This achievement also did not come without a long and hard legal battle.
Gurav, then a major, first resorted to litigation in 2006, when he filed a petition in the Delhi High Court asking women officers joining the Army under the Short-Service Commission (SSC) to opt for permanent commission. must be given. (PC) after 14 years of service, as was done in the case of their male counterparts.
Under SSC, officers can seek an extension at the end of their term, leave the force, or apply for permanent commission, which allows them to serve until retirement.
Denial of permanent commission to women officers perpetuated gender discrimination, the petitioners including Gurav told the court.
In March 2010, the Delhi High Court (HC) ruled in favor of women officers. Even though the decision was challenged before the apex court, the latter did not stay the operation of the judgment, meaning women officers eligible for permanent commission cannot be relieved from services.
However, Gurav was released from service that year, forcing him to approach the HC again, this time seeking contempt action against his force. The central government dragged the suit to the Supreme Court, where it eventually said that Gurav would become a PC officer under its new policy, which opened up permanent commission to women serving in the Education Corps and JAG.
As Gurav fought for gender equality in Delhi, he simultaneously petitioned the Bombay High Court in 2007, when he was “informally” transferred from Mumbai to the Central Command Unit in Lucknow.
She was transferred when she was in an advanced stage of pregnancy and was not in a position to travel. Thereafter, she got relief from HC and stayed in Mumbai.
For Gurav, his success in the Permanent Commission case was just the beginning of a legal journey he embarked on to end gender discrimination in the forces.
Her examination, her lawyer Pandey said, reflects “systemic” discrimination, due to the “attitudes and mindset” of the force, “as the top court observed in some of its decisions”.
Controversy over post, promotion
Gurav begins the next round of his fight when the Army does not allow him to appear for JAG’s promotion exam to the rank of lieutenant colonel and, instead, asks him to take the basic exam, which is actually a precondition for granting permanent commission. Is.
Gurav argued that since she was already a PC officer, she should not have been required to appear in the original examination and should instead be allowed to take the promotion examination of the department.
When she did not receive a reply to her representation, she petitioned the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT), which asked the Army to give her the test, though provisionally, and directed the authorities to respond to her representation.
The government challenged this order in the Supreme Court, which dismissed the appeal. Thereafter, the army reiterated in response to his representation that Gurav would have to take the original test.
This prompted Gurav to initiate a second round of litigation in the case, in which he won both the AFT and the apex court.
but despite Victory, Gurav was not given the post for which he was due. This was done only when the officer again transferred the AFT seeking execution of his order, which was finally done in 2012. He was then promoted with retrospective effect from 2010.
Meanwhile, while she was fighting for her promotion as lieutenant colonel, Gurav became eligible for the next rank of colonel. This also became a matter of dispute between him and the army.
Pandey told ThePrint that as per the Army’s 1991 administrative policy, a selection board for promotion is set up to consider officers for batch-wise promotion. But in Gurav’s case, the Army “illegally and arbitrarily” inducted him into the same selection board as the officers belonging to the two new batches – 1993 and 1994.
Once again, Gurav’s complaint against “discriminatory treatment” remained unanswered and he had to move the Delhi HC and then the AFT, which ultimately ruled in his favor. With this victory, Gurav became the first woman colonel of JAG in 2014.
the fight continues
Speaking about the current case in the Supreme Court, Pandey said that despite earlier court orders, the Army engaged Gurav with officers of earlier batches for the purpose of promotion as Brigadier.
He said his chances of promotion were further eroded when higher officials in the Army refused to accept his objection to his Annual Confidential Report (ACR), in which he was given a “lukewarm grading”.
“Gurav had protested against the officer who had written him two ACRs. While his objection to one was accepted, the other was rejected,” Pandey said, explaining why Gurav resorted to judicial recourse. Further, instead of announcing three vacancies for promotion – which should have been done as per the existing practice – only two were announced, the lawyer said.
Although the AFT agreed with Gurav on the ACR and ordered his removal, it did not reconstitute the selection board for a fresh and impartial view of his promotion.
On the other two points, the tribunal gave opinion against Gurav, who then moved the apex court.
The Supreme Court bench hearing his case last week noted the “lack of clarity” in the Army in calculating vacancies. It also directed the Army to reschedule the number of vacancies and, in an unprecedented move, asked an officer not below the rank of a lieutenant general to file a compliance affidavit.
(Edited by Aswari Singh)
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