The proverbial glass ceiling in the country's top direct tax collection authority -- CBDT -- has been broken with three senior women IRS officers occupying the post of members in the rank of special secretaries.

With the induction of 1976-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer Sudha Sharma as Member (Audit and Judicial) this month, the Central Board of Direct Taxes for the first time in its 48-year-long history has three women in the seven-member body.

The two other women officers are Member (Personnel and Vigilance) Manjari Kacker and Member (Legislation and Computerisation) Poonam Kishore Saxena, both 1974-batch IRS (I-T) officials.

"This is the first time in the history of CBDT that three women are members at one time. There have been women chiefs of the Board in 2000 and 2006 but this time it is different," former CBDT member S S Khan told PTI.

The CBDT was created in 1964 to formulate policy and administrative decisions for the Income Tax department in collecting taxes, combating tax evasion and other revenue related functions.

All the three women members have worked in various domains of the Income Tax department ranging from investigations to vigilance.

Chaired by Laxman Das, the other members of the CBDT are Member (Investigation) K Madhavan Nair, Member (Income Tax) S S Rana and Member (Revenue) S C Jaini.

While Sharma, before joining CBDT, was Director General Vigilance (Income Tax) in Delhi, Saxena was Director General Investigations (Income Tax) in Jaipur (PTI)