IMPORTANT POINT
The fundamental right to equality and non-discrimination based on gender, as well as the importance of recognizing both parents on educational certificates.

JUDGMENT (Oral)

1. The petitioner has raised an issue which, though facially simple, is of great societal significance, if discussed in its full amplitude. However, in the light of a commendably progressive circular issued by the University Grants Commission (UGC) on 6 June 2014, this Court is, I must say regrettably, denied of the chance of doing so.

2. The petitioner has passed her 5 year B.A. LLB course from the Amity Law School, Delhi, which at that time was affiliated to the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU). Her grievance is that the B.A. LLB degree issued to her on completion of the course reflects only her father's name (Mahesh Prasad) and not her mother's name (Poonam Prasad). She seeks that her degree should reflect both her father's and mother's name.

3. Ms. Prasad has drawn my attention to the principles of gender equality and the right of a person to be identified in the manner the person best chooses, for which purpose she relies, inter alia, on the judgment of the Supreme Court in Jigya Yadav v. CBSE, 2021 SCC OnLine SC 415. She also relies on U.O.I. v. Annie Nagaraja, (2020) 13 SCC 1 and Ministry of Defence v. Babita Puniya, (2020) 7 SCC 469.

4. In Annie Nagaraja, which dealt with the right of Short Service Commissioned women officers in the Indian Navy to be granted Permanent Commission, the Supreme Court, categorically rejecting, among others, the submission that there were "certain" duties which fell to the lot of permanently commissioned Naval officers including, inter alia, the duty of functioning as sailors, observed thus:

"78. The battle for gender equality is about confronting the battles of the mind. History is replete with examples where women have been denied their just entitlements under law and the right to fair and equal treatment in the workplace. In the context of the Armed Forces, specious reasons have been advanced by decision-makers and administrators. They range from physiology, motherhood and physical attributes to the male dominated hierarchies. A hundred and one excuses are no answer to the constitutional entitlement to dignity, which attaches to every individual irrespective of gender, to fair and equal conditions of work and to a level playing field. A level playing field ensures that women have the opportunity to overcome their histories of discrimination with the surest of responses based on their competence, ability and performance.

*****

80. These submissions which are based on deeply entrenched stereotypes came to be rejected by this Court in emphatic terms: (Ministry of Defence v. Babita Puniya)

"69. The submissions advanced in the note tendered to this Court are based on sex stereotypes premised on assumptions about socially ascribed roles of gender which discriminate against women. Underlying the statement that it is a "greater challenge" for women officers to meet the hazards of service "owing to their prolonged absence during pregnancy, motherhood and domestic obligations towards their children and families" is a strong stereotype which assumes that domestic obligations rest solely on women. Reliance on the "inherent physiological differences between men and women" rests in a deeply entrenched stereotypical and constitutionally flawed notion that women are the "weaker" sex and may not undertake tasks that are "too arduous" for them. Arguments founded on the physical strengths and weaknesses of men and women and on assumptions about women in the social context of marriage and family do not constitute a constitutionally valid basis for denying equal opportunity to women officers....

71....Such a line of submission is disturbing as it ignores the solemn constitutional values which every institution in the nation is bound to uphold and facilitate....

73....To cast aspersion on their abilities on the ground of gender is an affront not only to their dignity as women but to the dignity of the members of the Indian Army - men and women - who serve as equal citizens in a common