New Delhi: The Supreme Court Wednesday rejected the Centre's request to vacate its earlier order allowing women candidates to appear in the National Defence Academy exam this year.
On September 21, the government had informed the court that the notification for the NDA entrance exam for women will be out by May 2022, and a study group has been constituted to formulate a curriculum for the women cadets.
The government had said that all the criteria, facilities, training facilities, cabins, doctors etc are already in place for the males but certain infrastructural and curriculum changes are required to allow the induction of women.
Read: Notification allowing women in NDA to be released by May, Defence Ministry tells SC
ASG Aishwarya Bhati told the court that it will be a very "tight situation" for the NDA to conduct the exam this year and they be allowed to conduct it in 2022. But the court refused the plea saying "we gave hope to the girls. We cannot deny them that hope now."
"What answer would we have for the students who are on the anvil of taking the exam? Don't ask us to effectively vacate the order. You go on with the exercise. Let us see the result and see how many women get in," said the court.
"The Armed forces have seen far emergent situations both at the border and in the country. We are sure such training will come in handy here. We will thus not vacate the order passed by us. We will keep the plea pending here so that directions can be sought as the situation arise," the court noted.
Read: SC allows women to take NDA exams, terms women's exclusion as 'gender discrimination'
"Instead of skipping the examination, try to work out something for them. The numbers will be smaller this time, arrangements shall be made," it said.
The NDA exam is scheduled to be held on November 14 this year and the results will be out in 2 months.
The court has posted the matter for hearing again in the third week of January 2022. The Court was hearing a petition filed by Kush Kalra who had challenged the exclusion of eligible and willing female candidates from joining the prestigious NDA.
