Mumbai, July 11: The Supreme Court has denied a plea from IPS officer Urvashi Sengar, who sought permission to continue her training after becoming pregnant. Sengar, part of the 2023 batch from the Madhya Pradesh cadre, filed the petition after she was informed that current training regulations require her to leave her original batch and join a different one after childbirth.
Pregnant officers are exempt from physically demanding activities such as horseback riding, long-distance running, and combat training.
During the hearing, the Supreme Court questioned the rationale behind the existing regulations, asking the government why a medically fit female officer wishing to resume training after delivery should be barred from completing her probation period. The court also raised concerns about whether motherhood should hinder an officer’s progression, especially when no medical issues prevent her from continuing training.
The case challenges a 1993 Office Memorandum from the Ministry of Home Affairs, which restricts women IPS probationers from joining training for a year after childbirth, despite being declared medically fit.
The court has currently closed the hearing, stating that Sengar has already missed three weeks of training out of nine. However, it noted that the government’s statement indicated that this would not affect her seniority among female IPS officers. The Supreme Court directed the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) to hear Sengar’s original petition based on its merits.
The petition argues that decisions regarding training should be based on modern medical science and individual medical fitness rather than outdated rules. The 1993 regulation applies uniformly to all pregnant officers without differentiation between Phase-1 and Phase-2 training, which mainly consists of classroom-based studies and institutional training that are not physically strenuous.
In 2004, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) amended this old rule for female IAS officers, allowing them to complete training based on medical fitness. Thus, maintaining the 1993 rule for IPS officers contradicts the principle of equality.