: A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court has held that reservation provided under the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 would not extend to promotion to posts identified under the Act.
The Bench comprising Justice P.R. Ramachandra Menon and Justice Babu Mathew P. Joseph while dismissing an appeal against an order of the Kerala Administrative Tribunal (KAT) recently held that “limiting the benefit only for the purpose of ‘direct recruitment’ does not appear to be arbitrary or illegal.”
The court made it clear that the reservation envisaged under the Act “can only be in respect of the direct recruitment, so as to compel the employer to identify and reserve the requisite extent of posts to be accommodated by persons with disabilities as specified.” It could never be applied in the case of promotion.
The wordings of the statute did not give any such impression that it was to be applied also in the case of promotion.
The court added that if the contention of the petitioner that the reservation should be thrown open also for promotion was accepted, the object of the statute was likely to be defeated.
The court observed that if the posts identified under Section 32, for the disabled was left open to be accommodated by persons like the petitioner by promotion, then a deserving person with disability still waiting in the queue would lose his/her chance to get appointment. This could not but be an injustice.
Section 33 of the Act stipulated a minimum extent of 1 per cent each reservation for persons with blindness or low vision, hearing impairment and loco motor disability.
These were the three categories which were mainly to be considered for identifying the posts.
By virtue of the advancement of technology, more and more posts could be identified with reference to the “job specification” and the nature of duties to be performed by the persons concerned.
Reservation envisaged can be in respect of direct recruitment, not promotion
Section 33 of the Act stipulated an extent of 1 per cent each reservation for the handicapped
