New Delhi: Criticising the government for its slow implementation of disability law, the Supreme Court directed it to appoint eleven visually impaired people to the civil services under available vacancies.
A bench comprising Justices Abhay S. Oka and Pankaj Mithal on Tuesday (July 8) issued the order in an appeal by the Union government in a case involving Pankaj Srivastava, a 100% visually impaired man who was denied an appointment to the civil services in 2008.
Under the Persons With Disabilities Act, 1995, some posts and services in the government are reserved for people with physical handicaps.
But the apex court noted that the government “did not give effect to the reservations” under the Act from 1996 till 2009, resulting in a backlog.
Srivastava had challenged his non-appointment to the vacancies for people with disabilities that remained unfilled.
In 2012, the central administrative tribunal issued a direction in the case that the visually impaired who do not make it to the exam’s merit list be considered for reserved posts, while those people with disabilities who made it to the list be appointed to unreserved ones.
The government challenged this direction in the Delhi high court, which upheld it in 2013. It then challenged this decision in the apex court.
On Tuesday, Justices Oka and Mithal said that Srivastava’s appointment “could have been considered, especially when there is a gross default” on the government’s part in “promptly implementing the provisions” of the 1995 Act.
They also applied this to ten other visually impaired candidates who had scored better than Srivastava did in the 2008 civil services exam.
“Unfortunately, in this case, at all stages, the appellant has taken a stand which defeats the very object of enacting laws for the benefit of persons with disability,” the judges said of the Union government.
They added: “If the appellant had implemented the [1995 Act] in its true letter and spirit, [Srivastava] would not have been forced to run from pillar to post to get justice.”
Invoking the court’s power under Article 142, which allows it to pass any order it needs to in order to ‘do complete justice’ in a matter before it, the two judges directed the government to consider appointing the eleven candidates to posts in the civil services as part of the backlog disability vacancies.
“Necessary action of giving appointments shall be taken within a period of three months from today,” they said, adding that the candidates would not be entitled to pay arrears or seniority rising from the delay in their appointment.
But for the purposes of their retirement benefits, their “services shall be counted from the date on which the last candidate of the [visually impaired] category in CSE-2008 was given an appointment”, the judges clarified.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued a set of guidelines against the “disparaging” portrayal of persons with disabilities in visual media, including films.
A three-judge headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said that terms such as “cripple” and “spastic” have acquired “devalued meanings” in societal perceptions, PTI reported.
In 2016, the Modi government replaced the Hindi word vikalangjan to describe people with disabilities with the word divyangjan (meaning those with divine limbs or parts), but some people with disabilities said they found this characterisation regressive or patronising, The Wire had reported.