A blanket test for all disabled who have applied for government jobs may be “impractical” and a “one size fit all” model may not be the most efficient, the Delhi high court has observed. The court noted that since there were over 26 lakh people in India suffering from a variety of disabilities, a blanket policy might not work.
A bench of Justices S. Ravindra Bhat and Deepa Sharma were of the view that every disability required a specific aid and came with specific restrictions and the criteria of 40 per cent disability on the Indian Disability Evaluation Assessment (IDEA) scale “cannot be held ideal”.
The court concluded that there were deficiencies in the Persons with Disabilities (PWD) Act with regard to providing job reservation and 40 per cent criteria for being classified as a person with disability.
“It is the opinion of this court that a blanket 40 per cent disability test to provide reservations in employment may be impracticable. A particular disability suffered by an individual might require specific aid and comes with specific restrictions.
“Hence, it is the opinion of this court that in a country where 26,810,557 individuals suffer from different disabilities, a ‘one size fit all model’ might not be the most efficient. That 40 per cent on IDEA scale makes individuals more or less employable cannot be held ideal,” it said.
“This court, therefore, concludes that there is some deficiency in the existing law, i.e PWD Act, both with respect to providing reservations as well as the classification of all persons with disabilities as one having at least 40 per cent of any specified or enumerated condition, which can well be the reason for ultimate discrimination.”
The court’s observations came as it dismissed an appeal against its single judge order rejecting a plea of a civil service aspirant, suffering from severe depression with obsessive-compulsive disorder, claiming that the PWD Act excluded persons with mental illness for the purpose of job reservations.
While dismissing the appeal, the bench said that though the grievances raised were to an extent justified, the remedy lay in amending the law.
