Allow Female Aspirants To Take NDA Entrance Exam In November, SC Tells Centre

The Supreme Court has asked the Centre to allow female aspirants to appear in the NDA entrance examination in November this year, instead of postponing their induction by another year as pleaded by the government. The apex court has said it cannot vacate its interim order to allow women aspirants to take the NDA entrance examination this year.

The court added that the armed forces are the best response team to deal with any emergency and that it is hopeful that necessary arrangements will be put in place to pave the way for the induction of women in the NDA.

The Supreme court also said that it understands “the difficulty in putting in place infrastructure to induct female aspirants but the process cannot be postponed as it will not send a good signal”.

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The Union defence ministry on Tuesday informed the Supreme Court that a notification to allow women to sit for the NDA examination will be issued next year in May. Last month, in an interim order, the court had said that women will be allowed to appear for the NDA which was earlier scheduled for September 5 but was rescheduled for November 24.

In its affidavit filed before the apex court, the ministry had argued that it needed reasonable time to formulate policies for the intake of women candidates such as determining the medical standards taking into account their age and nature of training, fixing the intake strength, formulation of training standards for women and building of physical infrastructure such as residential quarters for women with strict physical separation, including separate bathroom cubicles.

The defence ministry, in its affidavit, added that “any dilution of physical training and service subject like firing, etc. would invariably impact the battle worthiness of the Armed Forces adversely.”

Earlier this month, the Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, while submitting that the Centre had decided to “induct girls for permanent commission”, urged the court to “consider granting status quo for this examination and let it continue as it will need policy, procedure, training and infrastructure changes.