26 Yrs On, Rajasthan HC Laments Plight Of Meritorious Visually Impaired Man Denied State Service Cadre For Not Fitting State's Check-Boxes

After over 2 decades, Rajasthan High Court granted relief to a visually impaired candidate who, despite being meritorious in the Examination, was not appointed under Rajasthan Administrative Service (RAS) but under State Accounts Service. This was because the State had not considered him disabled enough for reservation under disabled category and he was also not considered medically fit under the general category either.“I wish I had been more disabled — then perhaps the system would have seen me,” said Justice Sameer Jain at the outset in his order observing that these words reflect not a wish for greater suffering, but a bitter irony that in the "rigid, checkbox-driven machinery of the State's welfare framework, a person's lived experience of disability may fall through the cracks"."In a system meant to uplift the disadvantaged, the petitioner stands at a paradox: disabled, yet not disabled enough to be seen," the court said. The high court opined that the petitioner's exclusion from both the general category, due to functional limitation, and from the reserved category due to not meeting 40% disability threshold was a tragic administrative blind spot that created a constructive exclusion wherein the petitioner was neither abled nor disabled enough to benefit from the system. “The interpretation, as herein drawn by the respondents, that denies a person with lesser disability from appointment on medical grounds, while accommodating a more disabled person under the reservation category, is a paradoxical injustice and contrary to the doctrine of proportional equality as enshrined under Articles 14, 16, and 21 of the Constitution of India. Such interpretation frustrates the legislative intent and compels a person to lament that they were not more disabled.”The petitioner was suffering from a form of visual impairment. He had secured 360th and 21st position in the RAS Examination held in 1999 and 2003 respectively. Both the times, he applied under the general category since his visual impairment was assessed to be less than 20% making him ineligible for disabled category having minimum threshold of 40% disability. However, even under the general category, he was not considered medically fit for the RAS cadre, and was eventually appointed under Rajasthan Accounts Services. This was challenged before the Court. It was argued on behalf of the petitioner that both the cadres of RAS and the Rajasthan Accounts Services were identified as “non-technical services” under the Medical Examination Instructions issued by State in 1975 (“1975 Guidelines”). Hence denying the petitioner the RAS cadre while appointing him in the Rajasthan Accounts Services, merely due to his condition was arbitrary, irrational, and violative of Articles 14 and 21. On the contrary, the counsel for the State argued that the State had, on humanitarian grounds, considered petitioner's case with sensitivity by appointing him in Rajasthan Accounts Services.It was further said that the reservation or selection of candidates with disabilities for RAS and IAS began only during 2005-2007. Despite that, petitioner was favourable considered and accommodated based on his meritorious records.The court noted, "That the petitioner had successfully qualified all stages of the Rajasthan Administrative Services Examination conducted in the year 1999 and was placed at 360th position in the overall merit list. Subsequently, in the RAS Examinations held in the years 2001 and 2003, the petitioner once again qualified all stages and secured a significantly improved 21st rank in the merit list. The petitioner, in both the Rajasthan Administrative Services (RAS) Examinations conducted in the years 1999 and 2003, had appeared under the 'general category' and not under any reserved category, despite being eligible for Other Backward Classes (OBC) reservation and having a known medical condition of low vision". It said that the contradiction that the petitioner did not qualify under the disabled category due to the 40% disability benchmark. At the same time, he was consistently considered as medically unfit, under the general category, for RAS cadre. “This apparent contradiction between administrative and medical determinations calls for the application of the principle audi alteram partem i.e. the right to be heard as well as a harmonized interpretation of medical incapacity and administrative discretion.”Furthermore, the Court perused the 1975 Guidelines where both the RAS and Rajasthan Accounts Services were classified as “non-technical”, finding no material distinction between the functional nature or service requirement of the two. It was opined that once the State had exercised the discretion vested with it to grant appointment to the petitioner under the Rajasthan Accounts Services, his exclusion from RAS cadre was not only arbitrary but also discriminatory and violative of the provisions of the Constitution of India. “Both are classified as “non-technical...

26 Yrs On, Rajasthan HC Laments Plight Of Meritorious Visually Impaired Man Denied State Service Cadre For Not Fitting State's Check-Boxes

Nupur Agrawal

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