India's top court ruled women officers are eligible for commanding roles and permanent positions in the world's second largest army, a landmark judgment that ensures parity with their male counterparts.
Under earlier rules, women were allowed five-year terms extendable to 14 years without command, which the Supreme Court said was based on deeply entrenched stereotypes that consider women as the weaker sex. It gave the government three months to implement the order.
The ruling is another verdict favoring gender justice at a time when the country is being run by a Hindu nationalist government.
The Indian Supreme Court in the last two years has decriminalised gay sex, struck down the practice of instant divorce among Muslims, allowed entry of women at temples where they were barred and held the colonial adultery law as illegal.
"The time has come for a realisation that women officers in the Army are not adjuncts to a male dominated establishment whose presence must be tolerated within narrow confines," said a two-judge panel headed by Justice Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud.
The Indian Army had allowed entry of women in non-combat branches in 1992. During a hearing last year, the court was informed that around a fifth of sanctioned 50,266 posts for officers were vacant.
Only 1,653 positions were occupied by women officers.
