India, Sept. 18 -- The Supreme Court on Thursday directed Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) to pay Rs.12 lakh compensation to a Haryana woman who was denied a job as a helper because the oil company considered the work of carrying LPG cylinders unsuitable for women. A bench of justices Aravind Kumar and Vipul M Pancholi criticised the government undertaking for "disrespecting" women and said, "It is an affront to womanhood and that too by a Government of India undertaking." The court passed the order after noting that Sumitra, a Scheduled Caste woman from Karnal, had turned 63, and had spent more than three decades litigating her claim. The woman had applied for a helper's job when an LPG bottling plant opened in Karnal in 1988. Although she was educationally qualified and met all the requirements. She was later told that she had been denied employment because she was a woman. htc...