No Pre-Selection Medical Test Without PwD Claim: Raj HC

Candidate Not Claiming Disability Quota Cannot Be Medically Screened Out Before Selection: Rajasthan High Court

Published: 18 October 2026 · NyayVidhan

A TSP-ST (Female) candidate for Nurse Grade-II who had not claimed disability reservation was medically examined at document verification and rejected as ‘Out of other PH category’ for a 24% impairment in one arm. The Rajasthan High Court allowed her writ petition: only candidates claiming the disability quota could be medically examined before selection, and a person with a disability, more or less than 40%, who does not claim reservation cannot be denied appointment (paras 32-34, 53).

Key holdings

The 40% benchmark is the lower line for claiming disability reservation, not a measure of functional capacity (para 20).

A pre-selection medical board under the advertisement is meant only for candidates claiming the disability quota, to verify that claim (para 32).

Rule 13 of the 1965 Rules requires a fitness certificate only after selection; testing the petitioner earlier was discrimination (para 43).

Rulings on candidates who claimed the OL quota with other disabilities do not govern an open-merit claim (paras 46-49).

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

Under an advertisement of 30.05.2018 for 522 posts of Nurse Grade-II in the TSP area, the petitioner applied as a TSP-ST (Female) candidate without claiming reservation as a person with disability (paras 2, 3). She scored 50.825 marks against a cut-off of 49.709, and at document verification the respondents also conducted her medical examination (paras 4, 5). The list of rejected candidates published with the provisional select list of 25.11.2019 described her as physically handicapped in other category; her representation went unheeded and she was left out of the final list (paras 5-8). The State contended that the post was identified only for one-leg (OL) locomotor disability, so her 24% arm disability barred appointment (paras 11-13).

Court's Findings

Rule 35 of the Rules of 2011, a non-obstante provision, makes persons with Rule 36 disabilities eligible for identified posts despite fitness rules such as Rule 13 of the 1965 Rules (paras 17, 18, 25). It does not follow that persons who apply in the open category without claiming reservation cannot be considered (paras 19, 26). The 40% bar is a lower line for claiming reservation, not a yardstick of functional capacity (para 20). Excluding persons with under 40% disability in an arm, ear or eye from the remaining 97% seats would create a class without any intelligible criterion (paras 22, 23). The advertisement's medical-board condition applied only to candidates claiming the disability quota, to verify that claim (paras 30-32). Having applied as TSP-ST (Female) and scored above the cut-off, the petitioner could not be medically tested before selection and had to be shown in the select list (paras 33, 34). Rule 13 requires fitness to be ascertained only after selection; the earlier test was discrimination violating Section 3(3) of the 2016 Act and Articles 14 and 21, and the rejection also breached Section 4 (paras 43, 45). The State's precedents were distinguished because those petitioners claimed reservation (paras 46-49).

Legal Principle

A candidate who claims no disability reservation competes on merit in her own category and cannot be medically examined and rejected before selection for a disability, whether more or less than 40%. Appointment remains subject to the fitness certificate the service rules require or, absent such a rule, the appointing authority's objective satisfaction (paras 33, 53).

Precedents Relied Upon

Rajkumar Singh v. State of Rajasthan & Ors. S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 17118/2015 (Jaipur Bench, judgment dated 08.01.2016)
Distinguished Discussed at ¶ 14, 46, 49
Relied on by the State for the proposition that only persons with one-leg disability can be considered for appointment; distinguished because the petitioner there, with both upper limbs affected, claimed reservation on a post reserved for the OL category, whereas the present petitioner claimed no reservation.
Chhotu Lal Gurjar v. State of Rajasthan & Ors. S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 16754/2015 (judgment dated 07.12.2015)
Distinguished Discussed at ¶ 14, 47, 49
Relied on by the State; distinguished on facts because the petitioner there, with disability in both legs, claimed reservation, while the present petitioner staked her claim in her own TSP-ST (Female) category.
Varsha Narwani v. State of Rajasthan & Ors. S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 13034/2018 (decided on 14.05.2019)
Relied Upon Discussed at ¶ 50, 51
A candidate with 40% visual impairment who applied in the general category for a post reserved for OL and HI and found place in the merit list had been wrongly denied appointment; the Court found its facts closer to the present case than the cases cited by the State.

Statutory Provisions