The Indian Army on Monday granted time scale Colonel rank to five women officers after completion of 26 years of reckonable service, according to the defence ministry.
The five women officers selected for Colonel time scale rank are Lt Col Sangeeta Sardana from the Corps of Signals, Lt Col Sonia Anand and Lt Col Navneet Duggal from the Corps of EME and Lt Col Reenu Khanna and Lt Col Ritcha Sagar from the Corps of Engineers.
This is the first time that women officers serving with the Corps of Signals, Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME) and the Corps of Engineers has been approved to the rank of Colonel.
Previously, promotion to the rank of Colonel was only applicable for women officers in the Army Medical Corps (AMC), Judge Advocate General (JAG) and the Army Education Corps (AEC).
Lieutenant colonels become eligible to be promoted as colonels after 16-18 years of service. However, they do not get promoted at times due to lack of vacancies, or if the Army’s promotional board does not clear their names.
The widening of promotion avenues to more branches of the Indian Army is a sign of increasing career opportunities for women officers. Combined with the decision to grant permanent commission to women officers from a majority of branches of the Indian Army, this step defines the Indian Army’s approach towards a gender-neutral Army.
In a landmark verdict in February last year, the Supreme Court had directed that women officers in the Army be granted a permanent commission, rejecting the Centre’s stand of their physiological limitations as being based on “stereotypes” and “gender discrimination against women”.
The Army had constituted a special selection board in September to screen women officers. The results were declared a month later. After this, some women who were not granted a permanent commission had moved the Supreme Court.
In response to their petition, the Supreme Court had held that the evaluation criteria for granting permanent commission to women officers systematically discriminated against them. After the order, an Army selection board reconsidered the cases and granted permanent commission to 147 additional women. A total of 424 women have been granted permanent commission till now.
