Rules that bully women employees out of their jobs for getting married or having domestic issues amount to “coarse gender discrimination” and are plainly unconstitutional, the Supreme Court has said.
“Terminating employment because the woman has got married is a coarse case of gender discrimination and inequality. Acceptance of such patriarchal rule undermines human dignity, right to non-discrimination and fair treatment. Laws and regulations based on gender-based bias are constitutionally impermissible,” the court said in a recent order.
The observations were part of an order which upheld the rights of a woman Permanent Commissioner Officer in the Military Nursing Service who was discharged for getting married.
A Bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna directed the Union Government to pay former Lieutenant Selina John ₹60 lakh in compensation within eight weeks as a full and final settlement of all her claims. The government had come in appeal against a decision of the Lucknow Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal which had ruled in her favour.
Noting that her release from services was both “wrong and illegal”, the Supreme Court, in a recent order, found that the rule against marriage was applicable only to women nursing officers. The rule was “ex facie manifestly arbitrary”.
“Rules making marriage of women employees and their domestic involvement a ground for disentitlement would be unconstitutional,” the order noted.
The court also recorded that the Army instruction concerned with the terms and conditions of service for the grant of permanent commissions in the Military Nursing Service was withdrawn in 1995.
