New Delhi, September 17, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
The Supreme Court on Thursday directed Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) to pay Rs 12 lakh in compensation to a woman who was denied employment, observing that rejecting her on the basis of her gender would amount to an “affront to womanhood”.
A Bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and Vipul M. Pancholi passed the direction while considering the woman’s long-standing claim arising from the denial of her appointment at an IOCL LPG bottling plant.
During the hearing, the court questioned IOCL’s position that the woman was unsuitable for the work because the job involved manual labour, including lifting LPG cylinders, as well as night shifts.
“You denied her appointment just because she is a lady? This is disrespect to womanhood?” the Bench observed.
The court noted that the woman had since attained the age of superannuation and therefore considered lump-sum compensation more appropriate than directing IOCL to appoint her after decades of litigation.
“She has now attained superannuation, but she has been prosecuting her right throughout. We will award her lump-sum compensation,” the court said.
The Bench also questioned the rationale behind treating the physical requirements of the job as unsuitable for women, observing that women routinely handle LPG cylinders at home.
“We are from India, and every day we say we respect women and that she is a goddess. It is an affront to womanhood, we can say, and that too by a Government of India undertaking,” the Bench remarked.
During the proceedings, counsel for IOCL submitted that the woman may have been considered unsuitable because the work required manual labour, including lifting LPG cylinders, and involved night shifts. It was also argued that the list recommending candidates for employment was not binding on the corporation.
The dispute relates to the woman’s claim for employment at IOCL’s LPG bottling plant in Gudha. According to the background of the case, a committee headed by the Deputy Commissioner had recommended 49 candidates, including the woman, for employment.
She appeared for an interview for the post of casual khalasi/peon but was not selected.
The woman subsequently contended that 43 candidates were selected after the interview and that she alone was rejected because she was a woman. She approached the trial court, which decreed her suit and directed IOCL to absorb her as a casual employee or in an administrative or peon post other than that of a labourer.
IOCL challenged the decision before the first appellate court, which reversed the trial court’s September 22, 1990 judgment and dismissed the woman’s suit on August 6, 1993.
The matter subsequently reached the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which on October 14, 2025, upheld the first appellate court’s decision and dismissed the woman’s appeal.
A single-judge Bench of Justice Vikas Bahl had observed that the appointments were for casual khalasi/peon posts on a daily-wage basis and were not against sanctioned posts. The court also held that the district administration’s recommendation had not been shown to arise from any statutory provision, rule or regulation that made it binding on IOCL.
The High Court further observed that the woman had neither been selected nor worked with IOCL and that inclusion of her name in the recommendation did not by itself create a vested right to appointment.
Relying on earlier Supreme Court precedents, the High Court noted that mere inclusion of a candidate’s name in a select list or empanelment does not automatically confer an indefeasible right to appointment.
It also observed that there was no written order establishing that the woman’s candidature had been rejected solely because she was a woman. The High Court held that, in the absence of an established legal right to appointment, the alleged gender-based rejection could not by itself justify a direction to appoint her.
The High Court further noted that the document relied upon by the woman specifically concerned “land losers”, while there was no material showing that she fell within that category. It also found no material establishing that IOCL was legally required to appoint village residents or land losers under any applicable rule, regulation or policy.
The Supreme Court’s compensation order now brings the long-running employment dispute to a different conclusion, with the court opting for monetary relief in view of the woman having reached superannuation.
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