Persons with disabilities cannot be denied reservation in promotions in govt jobs: SC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday reiterated that persons with disabilities (PwD) cannot be denied reservation in promotions in government jobs as it upheld a Kerala High Court order granting the benefit to a woman last year. The top court said that identification of posts for the purpose of reservation had to take place immediately after the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 but a resistance to this is obvious from the "delaying tactics" adopted by most of the government authorities in truly implementing the intent.

It said that sometimes it is easier to bring a legislation into force but far more difficult to change the social mindset which would seek to defeat the intent of the law.

A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and R Subhash Reddy upheld the Kerala High Court order of March 9, 2020, by which it had held reservation in promotion to a woman with disability.

The SC bench said, "We are of the view that the course of action followed by the High Court in the impugned order is salutary and does not call for any interference."

The top court said that what seems to emerge from the case is that Kerala has not implemented the SC judgments in the Rajeev Kumar Gupta and others versus the Union of India case (2016), and in the Siddaraju versus State of Karnataka case (2020), in which it was held that reservation to PwD would be applicable even in promotion in government jobs. The bench said, "Thus, we consider it appropriate to issue directions to the State of Kerala to implement these judgments and provide for reservation in promotion in all posts after identifying said posts. This exercise should be completed within a period of three months".

It said, "We are making it time bound so that the mandate of the Act (The Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995) is not again frustrated by making Section 32 as an excuse for not having identified the post." The top court noted that the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act of 2016 has now taken care of how to deal with the aspect of reservation in promotion.

It dealt with the question of whether reservation under provisions of the 1995 Act is dependent upon identification of posts as stipulated by the law.

The top court said that there can be little doubt that it was never the intention of the legislature that the provisions of the Act would be used as a tool to frustrate the benefits of reservation under the 1995 law.

"In fact, identification of posts for purposes of reservation had to take place immediately after the 1995 Act. A resistance to such reservation is obvious from the delaying tactics adopted by most of the government authorities in truly implementing the intent. It thus shows that sometimes it is easier to bring legislation into force but far more difficult to change the social mind set which would endeavour to find ways and means to defeat the intent of the Act enacted and Section 32 was a classic example of the same" the bench said.