A public interest litigation (PIL) was filed in the Bombay High Court (HC) by four rejected women candidates in the process of selection for the post of fire extinguisher/fireman (women) at Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC).
While hearing the plea, the high court recently said that different municipal corporations adhering to different height criterion for women candidates for the post of firepersons was discriminatory in nature.
It further noted that there cannot be different benchmarks for different corporations and that women candidates cannot suffer due to such arbitrary policy or any arbitrary approval.
A division bench of Justice Girish S Kulkarni and Jitendra S Jain on October 26 was informed by advocate A S Rao for the petitioner that as per the corporations, they are being discriminated on the grounds that they did not comply with height norms implemented by the civic body which required women candidates to be eligible for participating in the selection process to have a height of 162 centimetres.
Rao argued that while the Maharashtra Fire Brigade Service Administration, had notified a minimum height of 157 centimetres for the women candidates for said post, Municipal Corporations of Pune, Mumbai and Nagpur require minimum height of 162 centimetres and same was discriminatory to the petitioners. He said several other civic bodies in the state are following the norm of 157 centimetres.
There cannot be different benchmarks for different corporations.
The Court passed an interim order directing PMC to allow petitioners to participate in the selection process and they should not be disqualified on the ground of height norms.
Seeking affidavits in reply by state government and PMC to the plea, the bench posted further hearing to November 9.
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