Rajasthan High Court Rules Against Discrimination of Unmarried Women in Public Employment
The Rajasthan High Court, in a significant judgment, has declared that depriving a woman of public employment on the basis of her marital status is not only a violation of the fundamental rights enshrined in Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India but also infringes upon a woman’s dignity.
Justice Dinesh Mehta, presiding over the case, emphasized that the
“State cannot prevent a woman from claiming a job simply because she has not tied the nuptial knot.”
He further asserted,
“The condition of a woman to be married being absolutely unconscionable and violative of women’s right to apply and get public employment is liable to be declared arbitrary and unconstitutional.”
The case came to the fore when an unmarried woman filed a writ petition challenging a condition in the State Government’s 2016 Circular concerning the selection and appointment of Aanganwari Karyakarta, Mini Karyakarta, and Helper. This condition permitted only married women to apply for the said posts. The petitioner contended that the 2019 advertisement by the state of Rajasthan, which invited only married women candidates for the posts, was discriminatory as it barred her, being unmarried, from applying.
Defending the circular’s condition, the state government’s counsel argued that the rationale behind allowing only married women was based on the assumption that if an Aanganwadi Worker or Helper gets married and relocates to her marital home, it might disrupt the functioning of the center where she was initially appointed.
Addressing this, the court opined that such discrimination against unmarried women due to the government’s condition
“cannot be countenanced.”
Labeling the condition as
“ex-facie illegal,” “arbitrary,”
and
“against the very scheme of the Constitution of India,”
the court noted that this form of discrimination was a new dimension not even anticipated by the framers of the Constitution.
The court further posed several questions to the state’s policymakers, asking,
“What if, the candidate marries to a boy of the same village or vicinity? What if, a married woman after being engaged as Anganwadi Karyakarta moves to another place? What if, a woman’s husband decides to live in a woman’s parental home? What if, a woman gets widowed or divorced and decides to move to a new place? and What if, a woman does not wish to marry at all!”
In light of these considerations, the court quashed the impugned conditions from both the 2016 Circular and the June 2019 advertisement that mandated a woman to be unmarried. The court remarked,
“The apprehension that after marriage, a woman will move on to her matrimonial house is firstly baseless and secondly, it cannot be a reason to justify or protect the offending condition.”
However, the court provided an avenue for the state to either obtain a requisite undertaking from unmarried female candidates or amend the circular. This would ensure that if a woman, after being engaged in any Aanganwadi Center, relocates due to marriage or other reasons outside the center’s jurisdiction, her engagement can be terminated.
