Supreme Court declines to take up plea seeking caste-based reservation in National Defence Academy

Court to focus on petition on women’s admissions in the institution

Social revolution does not come overnight and takes time, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday while refusing to deal at this stage with the issue of caste-based reservation in the National Defence Academy (NDA).

The top court gave the Centre time till July to study the implication of induction and deployment of ex-National Defence Academy (NDA) women cadets in the armed forces.

“Social revolution does not come overnight and it takes time,” a Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M.M. Sundresh told an intervener, who is seeking to reserve seats for Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, and Other Backward Classes in the NDA. The Bench said that at present it would only go into the issue of admission of women in the defence education institutions.

The court listed the matter for further hearing on July 19 and sought details of the study to be conducted.

The Bench noted the details of the affidavit filed by the Centre, which said that in respect of the number of women to be inducted for “NDA-II 2021” and “NDA-I 2022”, each course has 370 vacancies for the three services. Out of these, 208 will get commissioned in the Army, 120 cadets in the Air Force (IAF) and 42 in the Navy.

“The induction of woman cadets in the NDA has been a major policy decision. The respondents need sufficient time for deliberating implications in the long-term for induction and deployment of ex-NDA women cadets in the Indian armed forces. It is, therefore, submitted that the respondents require at least three months additional time towards this,” the Centre has said in its affidavit.

The affidavit was filed pursuant to the top court’s direction on a plea filed by advocate Kush Kalra on the number of women who have appeared for the NDA-2021 examination and the number of women inducted.