The Madras High Court has directed the Puducherry Government to take a policy decision on providing representation to women in government service in the Union Territory.

In their order on a petition by one M Muniammal, a Division Bench comprising Justices Elipe Dharma Rao and N Paul Vasanthakumar said “we deem it appropriate to direct the (Puducherry) government to take a policy decision and show it on International Women’s Day for giving effective representation to the womenfolk in the government service in the Union territory of Puducherry.”

The Judges said that as the government would have to take a policy decision ‘the grievance of women aspirants for government jobs is bound to be considered by the first respondent (government).

During the course of arguments it was brought to the court’s notice that the Tamil Nadu government and other state government’s reserved certain percentage of posts in jobs in their respective governments as a welfare measure in keeping with Article 15(3A) of the Constitution.

However, noting that the Puducherry Government had appointed the woman, the Judges dismissed the petition as “infructuous”.

The woman had challenged an advertisement and notification issued by the Puducherry Government in November 2002 inviting applications for new recruitment posts of ‘construction helpers’ which did not contain any reservation for women.