Indian Military

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday directed the army to reinstate 11 short service commission women officers who had been released after completion of 14 years in service.
The apex court asked the army to take the officers back from September 12 continuing their service from the date they joined.
A bench of justices J M Panchal and H L Gokhale said the order reinstating them would be subject to the outcome of the appeal filed by the army against the March 12, 2010 judgment of the Delhi high court.
The high court had earlier directed it to grant permanent commission to 11 serving women officers, who had filed a petition.
The apex court made it clear that its order is confined only to the 11 woman officers who had approached the high court and said the army would reinstate them in terms of the high court order.
It said the high court order will be in operation as it was not stayed when the army had challenged it.
The 11 officers were relieved from the service during the pendency of the petition in the high court in 2009-10.

[PIB] No discernible decreasing trend in the number of officers in Army has been observed. In Army, sanctioned strength of officers is 47,864 with a shortage of 12,510.

The shortage of officers in the Armed Forces is partly attributable to accretions from time to time, tough selection procedures, difficult service conditions coupled with perceived high degree of risk involved in service career.

Measures have been taken on an ongoing basis to reduce shortages in the officers' cadre. In this regard, a number of steps have been taken to attract the talented youth to join the Armed Forces. All officers including those in Short Service Commission (SSC) are now eligible to hold substantive rank of Caption, Major and Lieutenant colonel after 2, 6 and 13 years of reckonable service respectively. The tenure of SSC officers has been increased from 10 years to 14 years. A total number of 750 posts of Lt. Colonel have been upgraded to colonel towards implementation of AV Singh committee Report (Phase-I).