Bombay HC slams discriminatory height norm for women in fire brigade

The Bombay High Court has said that different municipal corporations in Maharashtra having different height criteria for women candidates applying for the post of fire brigade personnel is a discriminatory and arbitrary policy.

A division bench of Justices G S Kulkarni and Jitendra Jain, in an interim order passed last week, said there cannot be different benchmarks for the same job, and women candidates cannot suffer due to such arbitrary rules.

The court was hearing a petition filed by four women who had applied for the post of fire extinguisher/ fireman in the fire brigade of the Pune Municipal Corporation.

Their lawyer A S Rao said the petitioners were informed that they did not comply with the norm which required that women candidates have a minimum height of 162 centimetres.

As per the Maharashtra Fire Brigade Service Administration, the minimum height for women candidates is 157 centimetres, but the civic bodies of Pune, Mumbai, Thane and Nagpur prescribe a minimum height of 162 centimetres, advocate Rao told the court.

Several other municipal corporations in Maharashtra follow the 157 centimetres norm, the lawyer said.

The high court in its order on October 26 said this was a case of “apparent discrimination”.

“There cannot be different benchmarks for different corporations. Women candidates cannot suffer due to any arbitrary policy or any arbitrary approval of any such norms by the State Government, which discriminates against women candidates who are similarly situated,” the court said.