BENGALURU: To bring in gender equality, the Karnataka High Court held that exclusion of a married daughter for grant of an Identity Card (I-card) in terms of guideline 5(c) for issue of I-cards to dependents of ex-servicemen is violative of Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution.
Striking down the words “till married” in the guidelines for grant of I-card, while allowing a petition filed by Priyanka R Patil, daughter of an ex-serviceman from Mysuru who was killed in action, against denial of I-card, Justice M Nagaprasanna directed the Department of Sainik Welfare to issue the card to her. The Karnataka Examination Authority was directed to consider Priyanka’s case under the ex-servicemen quota for the post of assistant professor, in terms of the notification dated August 26, 2021.
“The guideline after the age of 25 years is uniform for both son and daughter. The daughter, being less than 25 years, gets married and loses the benefit of being a ward of an ex-serviceman for purpose of issuance of an I-card... The son gets the benefit whether he is married or unmarried; the daughter gets the benefit only if she remains unmarried.
Here lies the discriminatory choke, as the guideline portrays bias on the basis of gender; inequality on the basis of gender, as the marriage of the daughter takes away her right to get an I-card, and the marriage of a son does not take away his right to get an I-card. In the view of this court, if the son remains a son, married or unmarried, a daughter shall remain a daughter, married or unmarried. If the act of marriage does not change the status of the son, the act of marriage cannot and shall not change the status of a daughter,” the court said.
Change ‘men’ to ‘personnel’
The court observed that “women have reached combatant services in supervisory roles as officers and other responsibilities, be it in the Indian Army or Air Force or Navy. Therefore, the word ‘men’ in the title, a part of the word ex-servicemen, would seek to demonstrate a misogynous posture of an age-old masculine culture....There has to be a change in the mindset of the rule-making authority or the policy makers, it is only then there could be recognition of the commitment to the values of the Constitution...” It is for the Union government or State government to address this imperative need for a change of nomenclature wherever it depicts to be ‘ex-servicemen’ to that of ‘ex-service personnel’, the high
court added.
COURT NOTICE TO BMTC OVER TENDER FOR NEW BUSES
The Karnataka High Court on Monday issued a notice to the BMTC and the Transport Department on a PIL filed by a physically-challenged person, questioning the tender invited for procuring new buses with 1,000-mm chassis height. A division bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Ashok S Kinagi issued notice to them, after hearing the petition filed by Sunil Kumar Jain, a resident of Azadnagar in the city. He sought directions to prescribe the floor height of the buses to be between 400 mm and a maximum of 650 mm, and the doors of the buses to have wheelchair boarding devices for the physically-challenged and senior citizens. The BMTC recently invited tenders for the supply of 840 new BS-VI diesel-fuelled fully-built city-type buses.