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Jaswant Singh vs State of Haryana and Others

In the High Court of Haryana

Civil Writ Petition No. 15196 of 2001
Decided On: 06.05.2002
Appellants: Jaswant Singh
Vs.
Respondent: State of Haryana and Anr.
Hon'ble Judges: R.L. Anand, J.
Counsels: For Appellant/Petitioner/Plaintiff: M.S. Balianwali, Adv.
For Respondents/Defendant: Ashok Aggarwal, Addl. Adv. General, Punjab for Respondent No. 1 and S.S. Bhinder, Adv. for Respondent No. 2
Subject: Service
Subject: Civil

Acts/Rules/Orders:
Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 - Section 33
Disposition: Petition allowed

Judgement
R.L. Anand, J.

1. Sh. Jaswant Singh Pannu has filed the present writ petition under Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India praying that a writ in the nature of mandamus be issued against the respondents calling upon them to fill up the vacancies of posts of quality Inspector falling under 3% quota of persons with disabilities reserved as per section 33 of The Persons with Disabilities ( Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 (hereinafter referred to as the Act).

2. The case set up by the petitioner is that with the coming into force the aforesaid Act, as per section 33, the State Government is to appoint in every establishment such percentage of vacancies not less than 3% for persons or class of persons with disability of which one per cent each shall be reserved for persons suffering from blindness or low vision, hearing impairment and locomotor disability or cerebral palsy. Since no concrete steps were taken by the State of Punjab for implementation of the Act, therefore, CWP No. 14167 of 1997 was filed in which the State of Punjab was directed to fill up the vacancies reserved for persons with disabilities. Thereafter, the State of Punjab issued various letters to all the Heads of Departments, Boards/Corporations etc requiring them to clear backlog by recruiting persons with disability in their respective departments. Not only this the State of Punjab also issued a letter dated 17.4.2000 to all the Heads of Departments Boards and Corporations reserving 3% of vacancies for persons with disabilities.

3. According to the petitioner, in the year 1997-98 applications were invited by respondent No. 2 for direct recruitment against the 18 posts of Quality Inspectors, out of which one post was reserved for physically handicapped person. He applied for the post of Quality Inspector under the physically handicapped quota and appeared in the written test conducted in 23.8.1998 by respondent No. 2. He qualified the said test and was short listed for interview. The interview was scheduled to be held on 16.9.1998, but the same could not be organised as the respondent authorities issued a notice in the newspapers scraping all the interviews on the pretext that a ban has been imposed on all the recruitments. The petitioner waited for the sufficient long time with the hope that the respondent No. 2 will restart a recruitment process, but nothing happened. In short, the grievance of the petitioner is that directions be issued to respondent No. 2 to fill the backlog vacancies which are meant for the handicapped quota as per the provisions of Section 33 of the Act.

4. Notice of the writ petition was given to the respondents. A joint written statement was filed on behalf of the respondents. The stand of the respondent is that the respondent No. 2 has not filled any post of Quality Inspector belonging to direct recruitment quota so far. Although 18 posts of direct recruitment quota were advertised but the same were not fulled as the Punjab Government imposed ban on recruitments in PUNSUP. The process of test/interview was scraped in view of the ban by the Punjab Government. As the posts of direct recruitment have not been filled so far therefore there is no question of any roster point for the reserve category candidate at this stage. As and when any post of direct recruitment category is filled the answering respondents shall take care of reservation point for physically handicapped candidates as per the provisions of law.

5. I have heard the learned counsel for the parties and with their assistance have gone through the record of the case.

6. It is the mandate of Section 33 of the Act that 3% posts have to be kept reserved for the handicapped such as blind persons or the persons with low vision; the persons who are handicapped on account of hearing impairment and for locomotor disability or cerebral palsy. The statutory compliance is supposed to be done by every department of the Government and the Corporations/Boards. It is no excuse for respondent No. 2 to say that since a ban has been imposed therefore, it is not in a position to fill the posts of backlog vacancies. If there is ban, that will only apply prospectively to those vacancies which are already lying vacant with the respondents. The entire approach on behalf of the respondents to the matter is erroneous.

7. In these circumstances, the writ petition is allowed and directions are given to the respondents to start the process of filling up the vacancies of the posts of Quality Inspector falling under 3% quota of the persons with disabilities, reserved as per Section 33 of the Act. No order as to costs.

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