Hon'ble Judges/Coram:
V.R. Krishna Iyer and P.N. Shinghal

JUDGMENT

V.R. Krishna Iyer, J.

1. This writ petition by Miss Muthamma, a senior member of the Indian Foreign Service, bespeaks a story which makes one wonder whether Articles 14 and 16 belong to myth or reality. The credibility of constitutional mandates shall not be shaken by governmental action or inaction but it is the effect of the grievance of Miss Muthamma that sex prejudice against Indian womanhood pervades the service rules even a third of a century after Freedom. There is some basis for the charge of bias in the rules and this makes the ominous indifference of the executive to bring about the banishment of discrimination in the heritage of service rules. If high officials lose hopes of equal justice under the rules, the legal lot of the little Indian, already priced out of the expensive judicial market, is best left to guess. This disturbing thought induces us to make a few observations about the two impugned rules which appear prima facie, discriminatory against the female of the species in public service and have surprisingly survived so long, presumably, because servants of governments are afraid to challenge unconstitutional rule making by. the Administration.

2. Miss Muthamma, the petitioner complains that she had been denied promotion to Grade I of the Indian Foreign Service illegally and unconstitutionally. She bewailed that, to quote her own words;

...one of the reasons for the petitioner's supersession is the long standing practice of hostile discrimination against women. Even at the very threshold when the petitioner qualified for the Union Public Services at the time of her interview, the Chairman of the U.P.S.C. tried to persuade (dissuade) the petitioner from joining the Foreign Service. On subsequent occasion he personally informed the Petitioner that he had used his influence as Chairman to give minimum marks in the viva. As the time of entry into the Foreign Service, the petitioner had also to give an under taking that if she were to get married she would resign from the service.

That on numerous occasions the petitioner had to face the consequences of being a woman and thus suffered discrimination though the Constitution specifically under Article 15 prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race caste, sex or place of birth and Article 14 of the Constitution provides the principles of equality before law....

That members of the Appointments Committee of the Union Cabinet and the respondent No. 2 are basically prejudiced against women as a group. The Prime Minister of India has been reported in the Press as having stated-it will not be irrelevant here to mention that most of the women who are in the se........