New Delhi- In a landmark petition that exposes a stark gap between the rising number of women in policing and the basic infrastructure to support them, the Justice for Rights Foundation has approached the Delhi High Court, demanding the installation of sanitary pad vending machines in every police station across the National Capital Territory.
The Public Interest Litigation (PIL), filed under Article 226 of the Constitution, also seeks a historic directive to frame a comprehensive menstrual hygiene policy for thousands of female police personnel who currently work without assured access to hygienic washrooms, rest-rooms, or emergency sanitary products.
The petition filed through Advocates Karnika Bahuguna and Pooja Kushwaha on behalf of authorised representatives Muskan Singh Bankura (Secretary) and Shreya Sejwal (Joint Secretary, Women Cell, Delhi) argues that the State’s inaction amounts to a brutal violation of fundamental rights under Articles 14 (equality), 15 (non-discrimination), and 21 (right to life with dignity) of the Constitution.
According to the petition, the Foundation filed multiple RTI applications between 2024 and 2025 with the Delhi Police’s Public Information Officer. The responses revealed a damning picture:
Across hundreds of police stations and several thousand female police personnel, there are hardly any sanitary pad vending machines installed proportionally.
The only exception is the New Delhi District, which stands alone in having some infrastructure.
There is zero budgetary allocation for menstrual hygiene in police stations.
Most shockingly, the Delhi Police Headquarters has no policy, circular, standing order, or institutional mechanism on the subject, a complete administrative void.
“It is not a matter of privilege, but of basic biological need and human dignity,” the petition states. “Female police officers work grueling shifts, often through the night, in stressful law-and-order situations. Denying them sanitary pads and hygienic disposal facilities is not neglect — it is structural discrimination.”
The PIL raises a substantial question of public importance: whether the failure of the State to provide menstrual hygiene infrastructure, especially given the demanding nature of policing duties for women, violates their constitutional rights.
Legal experts note that while several judgments have affirmed menstrual dignity in workplaces and prisons, this is the first litigation specifically targeting police stations as workplaces for women in uniform.
“Police stations are not just places of detention, they are workplaces for thousands of women. If schools, railways, and airports can have pad vending machines, why not a police station where a woman officer may be posted on a 12-hour night shift?” asked Advocate Karnika Bahuguna, co-counsel for the petitioner.
"I remember speaking to a woman constable at a police station in outer Delhi — she had been on duty since 5 in the morning and it was already past noon. When I asked her how she managed during her period on such shifts, she laughed — not out of amusement, but out of exhaustion at the question itself. She said, 'Madam, hum bas ruk jaate hain. Kuch nahi hota.' We just hold on. Nothing happens. That sentence stayed with me. Because something does happen — to her body, to her dignity, to her sense of worth as a person in State service. That is what this petition is about. Not a machine. Not a policy paper. It is about telling that constable, and the thousands like her across Delhi, that what happens to her body matters to this Republic," Muskan Singh, shared her experience with The Mooknayak.
Why JRF Filed This Petition and Why It Cannot Stop at Delhi
The idea for this petition did not begin in a courtroom. It began in conversations, quiet, almost apologetic conversations that women police personnel have learned to have about their own bodies, in hushed tones, as though menstruation were a personal failing rather than a biological reality.
In the course of the RTI exercise, and in informal interactions that preceded and followed it, members of JRF Women Cell spoke to several female police personnel across Delhi's districts. What emerged was not a story of dramatic suffering. It was something quieter and, in many ways, more disturbing , a story of systematic invisibility. Women who had learned to carry extra clothes to the station because there was no assurance of a clean changing space. Women who skipped water during long shifts to avoid having to use toilets that were either shared with male colleagues or simply not fit for use. Women who bought their own sanitary products from their own salary, sometimes sending a junior constable out during a lull in duty to purchase them from a nearby medical store, if one happened to exist near that police station at all.
None of them used the word "rights." None of them said "violation." They spoke the way people speak when they have accepted an indignity so thoroughly that they no longer recognise it as one. "That is precisely what moved us at JRF to file this petition. Not outrage, though outrage is entirely warranted but the recognition that when people stop naming their own suffering, the law must name it for them," Muskan said.
The Foundation has sought a series of binding directions, including:
Installation of functional sanitary pad vending machines in all Delhi Police stations within a time-bound period, with a verified compliance report.
Earmarked budgetary allocations from the Ministry of Home Affairs to Delhi Police for procurement, installation, maintenance, and sanitary waste disposal units.
Formulation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) covering installation, maintenance, accessibility, periodic replenishment, and safe disposal mechanisms.
A time-bound action plan from Delhi Police specifying phase-wise installation and funding sources.
A direction that sanitary pads be made available free of cost or at subsidised rates to female police officers and women visitors, with adequate hygienic disposal provisions at every police station.
The petition names four key respondents: Delhi Police, Government of NCT of Delhi, Union of India through the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
The matter is expected to be listed for hearing before the High Court of Delhi in due course.
While the Delhi Police has significantly increased the recruitment of women in recent years, including in combat roles, night patrolling, and investigative positions, the PIL argues that infrastructure has not kept pace. The absence of menstrual hygiene facilities often forces women officers to take unscheduled leave, suffer in silence, or risk infections.
“We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for basic dignity. A vending machine costs less than a traffic barrier. If the State can install CCTV cameras in every station, it can install a pad vending machine,” said Shreya Sejwal, Joint Secretary, Women Cell, Delhi.
"As for whether we intend to pursue this beyond Delhi: the answer is yes, unequivocally. Delhi is the beginning, not the destination. The RTI data from Delhi Police is damning, but it is not unique. Every State in this country runs police stations. Every police station in this country employs women. And in virtually none of them does a binding, enforceable, institutionally backed menstrual hygiene policy exist. If this Hon'ble Court issues the directions we have sought, it will create the first judicial precedent of its kind in India — a precedent that can and must travel to every High Court, and eventually to a national policy framework that no State government can ignore.
India sent the world's first all-female peacekeeping unit. India sits on the ISO committee drafting global standards for menstrual products. India cannot, in the same breath, tell its women in uniform that a sanitary pad vending machine is beyond institutional capacity.
We will pursue this until it becomes policy. Not for us. For that constable who has learned to just hold on" Muskan and Shreya asserted in unison.
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