SC on Women in NDA Exam: Supreme Court allows women candidates for NDA exam

SC on Women in NDA Exam: The Supreme Court today, on August 18, 2021, issued an important interim order, allowing women candidates to appear in the National Defense Academy (NDA) examination. The top court, in its order regarding the NDA exam, said that the Army's 'policy decision' is discriminatory in terms of gender equality. Let us tell you that the NDA exam is to be conducted on 14 November 2021. The notification for the second edition of the NDA exam for the year 2021 to be conducted twice a year by the Union Public Service Commission was released on 9 June 2021. As per the notification, 29 June applications were invited from Indian citizens unmarried male candidates for 400 vacancies through NDA 2 exam. After this, the exam was to be conducted on 5th September, but the commission changed the exam date in the revised schedule.

A division bench of Supreme Court Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Hrishikesh Roy issued this interim order on a writ petition seeking permission for women to appear in the NDA entrance examination. This writ petition was filed by Kush Kalra. The petition states that denying eligible women candidates the opportunity to join NDA is violative of Articles 14, 15, 16, and 19 of the Constitution of India. The petition contends that deserving women candidates have been denied the opportunity to join the National Defense Academy based on their gender, which subsequently hinders career advancement opportunities for women officers.

The NDA exam conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) consists of two papers related to Mathematics and General Ability Test. Both the papers are for 2 hours and 30 minutes. There are 300 marks for the Math paper and 600 marks for General Ability Test. The candidates declared successful based on their performance in the NDA exam have to go through Intelligence and Personality Test to be conducted by the Services Selection Board (SSB) in the next stage.