Centre defends permanent commission policy in Army as SC reserves verdict
New Delhi (PTI): The Centre on Thursday defended its policy on the grant of permanent commission to Short Service Commission women officers and said the apex court's verdicts on the aspect were being followed without discrimination.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant, Ujjal Bhuyan and N Kotiswar Singh reserved its verdict on a batch of 84 officers of the Army.
The officers have challenged the denial of grant of permission commission.
Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for the Centre and the Army, submitted that the 2020 verdict in Babita Puniya case and 2021 verdict in Nitisha case had actually upheld the policy and whatever faults which were still there and pointed out by the court were eventually corrected.
Justice Kant told Bhati it did not mean that the Army had corrected its policy on permanent commission and whatever faults existed were removed post Nitisha verdict.
Concluding her arguments, Bhati said, “No process can satisfy everyone and there will always be heartburn.”
She said elimination was also part of policy to keep the forces young and it was equally applied to all without discrimination.
Senior advocates Maneka Guruswamy, V Mohana, Abhinav Mukherjee and Rekha Palli, appearing for the SSC officers, advanced counter submissions.
The bench said it would also hear similar pleas related to permanent commission from the Navy, followed by the Air Force and coast guard.
On September 24, the Centre denied any discrimination in granting permanent commission to SSC officers when compared with their male counterparts while assuring the top court that all parameters were being duly followed.
Bhati said uniform policy is followed for all in grant of permanent commission.
Countering the arguments of the women officers, who moved court, Bhati had said the annual confidential reports of those officers were actually gender neutral without an element of discrimination.
She had submitted that the methodology adopted is uniformly applicable to all officers.
"The aim of a confidential report is to have an objective assessment of an officer's competence, employability and potential as observed during the period covered by the report, primarily for organisational requirements," she had said.
Bhati said it was an impression sought to be created that there was discrimination but statistics since 1991 showed women officers were not discriminated against their male counterparts.
"In the Army, we have been following a very strict regime and there is no question of discrimination, as the selection board does not have the name of the officer before it. We are a professional army and do err sometime and AFT and courts have corrected us," she had said.
Dealing with the arguments of non-consideration of "criteria appointment" or difficult area posting in the ACR of women officers, Bhati had said such appointments were inconsequential and the officers were marked in average in the annual confidential reports.
Bhati elaborated that there were no marks or distinction of "criteria" or "non criteria" appointments for PC selection board and criteria appointments are specified for promotion to colonel, brigadier, major general and lieutenant general ranks.
She said below seven years of service, all confidential reports (CR) are non criteria reports and there are inherent checks available within the system for internal assessment of CRs to guard against subjectivity and bias assessment.
There are several aspects in the ACR which are considered at the time of grant of permanent commission. Criteria appointment is not the sole criteria which is considered, Bhati had submitted.
The women officers have contended that despite being posted in difficult areas and having participated in operations like Galwan, Balakot and the most recent Operation Sindoor, they were not considered for the PC.
A criteria appointment usually means an officer given command of a post in a difficult and hostile area or operation.
Bhati said the ratio of regular officers to the corresponding support staff through SSC against the desired ratio of 1:1.1 was very skewed.
"Over a period of time due to low subscription of Short Service Commission and low selection rates of in Service entries, the numbers in support cadre has decreased majorly and this deficiency had to be made up by recruiting more regular officers. However, organisational requirements and aspirations of officers dictate otherwise," she submitted.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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