Overview

• A bench led by Chief Justice D.K. Upadhyay and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela has issued notices to the Centre and UPSC with the next hearing scheduled for November 12, 2025.
• The petition challenges the UPSC’s May 28 CDS-II advertisement for limiting women’s applications to Officers’ Training Academy Chennai and excluding them from the Indian Military Academy, Indian Naval Academy and Air Force Academy.
• Kush Kalra argues that the exclusion infringes women’s fundamental right to practice any profession under the Constitution and contradicts the notification’s own encouragement of gender balance.
• The case builds on the Supreme Court’s February 2020 ruling against restricting women’s command roles and on an April 2024 Delhi High Court directive that went unimplemented.
• The petition warns that barring women through CDS deprives the armed forces of officers such as Col. Sofiya Qureshi, who was praised for her role in Operation Sindoor.