New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday gave the Army four months’ time to finalise its policy on promotion of women officers from the rank of colonel to brigadier, after it was told that deliberations on the issue are underway.A bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud and Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra took note of the submissions of Attorney General (AG) R. Venkataramani and senior advocate R. Balasubramanian on the matter, the Hindustan Times reported.CJI Chandrachud said, “We will give you [Army] time for bringing the policy. We would expect the formulation of policy by March 31, 2024.”Some women officers in the Army had alleged discrimination in promotion from the rank of colonel to brigadier.In its February, 2020 verdict, the apex court had ordered permanent commission (PC) for women officers in the Army, rejecting the Union’s stand on their “physiological limitations” as being based on “sex stereotypes” and calling it “gender discrimination against women”, the Hindustan Times reported.The top court had said that all women Short Service Commission (SSC) had to be considered for permanent commission irrespective of them having completed 14 years or, as the case may be, 20 years of service within three months.A month after that, the Supreme Court had directed the Navy to do the same. It had said that a level playing field would ensure women have the opportunity to overcome “histories of discrimination” in its March, 2020 verdict.AG Venkatramani told the court that an officer must meet the “essential eligibility criteria” of minimum 2 confidential reports in Colonel Select rank. “Any deviation from this fundamental eligibility criteria will amount to compromising with the operational requirement of the Indian Army,” he said.He also informed the court that to earn the rank of brigadier, an Army officer is required to experience operational command of a unit or battalion for a period of nearly 2 years. This experience and service knowledge as commanding officer of a unit helps officers to understand the “intricacies, nuances and complexities” of command, Venkataramani said.The applicant officers, represented by advocate Archana Pathak Dave, informed the Supreme Court that women have fought a long drawn battle in courts to get their due. They said that command roles were made available to women only after the top court’s 2020 decision on considering SSC women officers for PC.However, in 2021, the court found that the Army’s yardstick to grant PC to women officers was discriminatory when compared to the criteria for male officers. Dave said that the applicants only seek a policy to be put in place for governing promotions by special board 3 (SB-3), the Hindustan Times reported.The AG countered this by saying that all Army policies are “gender-neutral” and that the applicants should not push the matter beyond a certain point. He said most of the women officers before the court did not meet the eligibility criteria for brigadier with command positions given to them after June this year, the report said.The bench said, “That is all because we pushed the envelope. We nudged you, otherwise nothing would have happened.” The Court told Venkataramani that the Army had shown resistance by citing operational efficiency as a ground to justify denial of permanent commission to women.“It is not your case that operational preparedness of Army has been affected in any manner with women coming in,” the bench added.In a note submitted to Court, the AG said, “The experience of performing in colonel’s rank is utmost essential to gauge any officer’s fitness for higher appointment. Any exception to this will have ramifications on the quality of leadership in the Indian Army along with opening avenues for many others who are deficient of command criteria to seek similar treatment.”The top court had criticised the Army for denying promotions to women permanent commission officers in November as well.The bench had said, “An attitude has been to find some way to defeat the just entitlements of women officers. Such an approach does disservice to the need to provide justice to the women officers, who have already fought a long and hard battle, to get their just entitlements under law.”The women officers had approached the court last year as SB-3 that empanels officers as colonel had not met for 18 months despite the Supreme Court’s 2021 directive to the Army asking it to grant all consequential benefits including promotion and financial benefits to the women officers within 3 months.