RECOGNIZING STRUCTURAL GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN INDIAN PUBLIC SECTOR INSTITUTIONS: A JUDICIAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Despite the Constitutional guarantees of equality under the Constitution of India, women face deep-rooted structural discrimination in public sector workplaces. While explicit discrimination isn’t as common, indirect discrimination remains a persistent, under-recognized challenge, existing in forms of policies, practices, and institutional cultures. Mere formal equality is inadequate in dealing with the structural barriers, such as gendered promotion tracks, caregiving penalties, discriminatory service rules, and workplace cultures that devalue women’s contributions. Courts have often stepped in to expose and address these forms of structural bias, especially through a series of progressive judgments. This paper tracks the judicial journey of addressing indirect structural discrimination starting from Air India v. Nargesh Meerza (1981) to Secretary, Ministry of Defence v. Babita Puniya (2020). Together, these judicial milestones lay the foundation for understanding how constitutional interpretation has evolved to recognize gender bias not just in overt policies but also in the subtle, everyday practices that continue to disadvantage women in public employment. The authors, through this paper, also explore the contemporary manifestations of structural discrimination in Indian public institutions, like rigid working hours and lack of support for caregiving, gendered expectations in promotion and appraisal systems, unequal access to decision-making roles, and inadequate grievance redressal systems for harassment and bias. The paper aims to expose that while judicial recognition of indirect discrimination has advanced, the same doesn’t prove true in the case of administrative reform, which still to this day remains inconsistent. The final section of the paper proposes concrete remedial strategies, including gender audits in public offices, affirmative action in promotions and robust enforcement of anti-discrimination guidelines. Through a legal lens, the paper asserts that realizing true equality for women in public employment requires more than protective-laws, it demands structural change, catalyzed and sustained by an active, empathetic, and reform-oriented judiciary.