shimla on the issue of gender discrimination in the state policy on reservation in government jobs for wards of freedom fighters the himachal pradesh high court while terming the policy arbitrary and illegal has quashed and set it asidethe court said there was no reason or justification to exclude amarried daughter and consequently the children of a married daughteronce a decision has been taken to extend the benefit of horizontal reservation to descendants of freedom fighters whether the descendant is a son or a daughter should make no difference whatsoever it addedthrough a letter petition rekha sharma and geeta sharma daughters of late het ram sharma a freedom fighter of dadyal sundernagar mandi district had highlighted gender discrimination in the state policy while providing reservation in government jobs to the wards of freedom fighterswhile disposing of the petition a division bench of acting chief justice sanjay karol and justice sandeep sharma in a recent judgment said any discrimination against a daughter would be discrimination on grounds of genderit held that the policy of the state confining benefits to unmarried daughter alone unlike married son is not in line withthe object sought to be achieved by conferring the benefit of reservation on the wards of freedom fightersthe state government had taken the stand in the court that with the solemnization of marriage a daughter severs her relationship with her parental family for she gets transplanted into the family of her husband and as such cannot claim herself to be part of the family of a freedom fighterwe find the stand adopted by the state to be absolutely archaic and disappointing it is certainly not in tune with the changing times in fact it is out of sync with the constitutional values and principles predominant mindset of male chauvinism is all pervading the judgment saidthe division bench said action of the respondents by not giving reservation to married women and not allotting them wards of freedom fighter certificate was illegal and arbitrarytime has therefore come for the court to affirmatively emphasise that it is not open to the state if it has to act in conformity with the fundamental principles of equality embodied in articles 14 and 15 of the constitution to discriminate against married daughters by depriving them of the benefit of the reservation which is made available to a son irrespective of his marital status it observed