The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the Centre's plea
to defer the first National Defence Academy (NDA) exam for women candidates,
and directed that women should be allowed to sit for the upcoming exam on
November 14.
A bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul said:
"This won't send the right signal to women after having given them the
aspiration. Let's begin from this year."
"We cannot delay things by a year. We gave hope to
the girls. We cannot deny them that hope now," said the bench
The top court pushed the Armed Forces to allow women to
write the NDA exam in November this year, and not wait till May 2022.
The bench noted that postponing the process of allowing
women to write the NDA exam to May will delay their induction to 2023.
The Centre contended that certain infrastructural and
curriculum changes are required to allow the induction of women, and sought
time till May 2022 to allow the women to take the exam. The bench said the
Armed Forces are trained to act in emergencies and it is the best response
team.
The bench reiterated that the admission of women cannot
be postponed, while taking note of the submissions made by senior advocate
Chinmoy Pradip Sharma, representing the petitioner Kush Kalra, that two exams
are held by the NDA during a year for the admissions to the next year.
The Centre has told the Supreme Court that a study group
has been constituted by the defence services to expeditiously formulate a
comprehensive curriculum for women cadets.
The government said, a notification allowing women
candidates to take the entrance exam for entry into all three defence services
in the existing streams through the National Defence Academy (NDA) will be
released in May, 2022.
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In an affidavit, the Centre said: "A study group has
been constituted by the defence services, comprising of experts to
expeditiously formulate the comprehensive curriculum for women cadets at NDA
and a Board of Officers has been convened to give a holistic and futuristic
proposal for training of women cadets at NDA incorporating all relevant
aspects".