Judgment Intelligence
Petition AllowedRanjan Tak v. Union of India & Ors.
2023:RJ-JD:27756
S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 18826/2018
- Court
- Rajasthan High Court
- Date of Decision
- 2 September 2023
- Bench
- Justice Dinesh Mehta
- Relevant Acts & Sections
- Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 — Sections 2(h), 2(r), 2(s), 3(3), 33, 34; Rights of Persons with Disabilities Rules, 2017 — Rule 3; Constitution of India — Articles 14, 21
Final Outcome
Writ petition allowed and the order of 27.11.2018 quashed. The respondents were directed to appoint the petitioner as Materials Management Officer within eight weeks against the post kept vacant under the interim order of 11.12.2018, with notional benefits from 05.10.2018 (paras 41-43). A special appeal, D.B. SAW/953/2023, has been filed.
Key holdings
- Reservation is for benchmark disability, but a person with lesser disability cannot be declared unfit for employment in the same stream with the same disability (para 40).
- Section 3 of the 2016 Act applies to all persons with disability, irrespective of the nature and extent of the disability (para 29).
- A binocular-vision requirement cannot apply to a post identified for low-vision candidates; ONGC's medical note was held contrary to law (paras 30-31).
- Unfilled reserved posts defeated the stand that no more visually impaired candidates could be accommodated (paras 21-22).
Case explainer by NyayVidhan: an account of this judgment and the law it laid down, not the court's text. The judgment itself is the authoritative version.
Brief Facts
ONGC advertised 49 posts of Materials Management Officer, 19 of them reserved for visually handicapped persons; the advertisement said the post suited the OA, OL, BL, HH and LV categories (para 3). The petitioner, an IIT Roorkee engineer whose left eye was impaired to 30% by a cricket ball, applied as an OBC candidate, not as a PH candidate (paras 4, 12). He secured 81.48% and stood 10th in merit, and was offered appointment on 25.09.2018 subject to medical fitness (paras 5, 12). ONGC's medical board found him unfit for want of binocular vision, and his representation was rejected on 27.11.2018 under ONGC's norm requiring good binocular vision (paras 5-7).
Court's Findings
Where a post has been identified as suitable for a particular kind of disability and reserved for candidates with 40% or more of it, other candidates with that disability cannot be denied appointment on the remaining seats; treating persons below the benchmark as medically unfit is irrational and arbitrary (para 19). ONGC's stand that it could accommodate only 19 visually handicapped persons was incorrect: only 11 such candidates were empanelled, leaving 8 reserved posts unfilled (paras 21-22). Section 3 of the 2016 Act is not confined to persons with benchmark disabilities; section 3(3) bars discrimination on the ground of disability unless the act is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim (paras 27-29). Note (iii) to clause V (Eyes) of ONGC's medical instructions was held contrary to law on these facts; for a post identified for visually handicapped persons, a binocular-vision condition is ‘a contradiction in itself’ (paras 30-31). Medical norms must be construed or relaxed for a disability held suitable for the post (para 32). Selecting 11 benchmark-disabled candidates without binocular vision while rejecting the petitioner was discriminatory, violated Article 14 and section 3(3), and infringed the right to live with dignity under Article 21 (paras 34-35).
Legal Principle
A person whose disability is of the kind for which a post has been identified as suitable cannot be declared medically unfit because he has not claimed reservation or his disability is below the 40% benchmark; medical norms must be construed or relaxed, and section 3(3) of the 2016 Act protects every person with disability (paras 29, 32, 40).
Precedents Relied Upon
- Varsha Narwani v. State of Rajasthan & Ors. S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 13034/2018 (order dated 14.05.2019)
Cited by the petitioner's counsel (a Co-ordinate Bench order); not discussed by the Court.
- Rekha Meena v. State of Rajasthan & Ors. S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 1325/2020 (judgment dated 27.02.2020)
Cited by the petitioner's counsel; not discussed by the Court.