Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 12: Division Bench of State High Court comprising Chief Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar and Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur today set-aside the judgment of Single Judge with the direction to SSRB to consider the candidature of the appellants for the posts of JE Civil as per Section 22 of the Jammu and Kashmir Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1998, and issue selection order within a period of four weeks.
The direction was passed in a LPA filed by Anjeel Kumar, Narmeet Singh, Shifali Sharma and Sahil Khajuria against the judgment of Single Judge.
After hearing Advocate Abhinav Sharma appearing for the appellants whereas Senior AAG Gagan Basotra for the State and Advocate KM Bhatti for the SSRB, further directed Commissioner/ Secretary Public Works Department to appoint the appellants within a period of four weeks from the date of selection order.
“From the provisions cited by the Advocate Abhinav Sharma, it is clear that State is duty bound to identify the posts in all establishments which can be reserved for persons with disabilities and the said identification of posts can be reviewed at periodic intervals not exceeding three years after taking into consideration the development in technology”, the DB said.
Section 22 mandates the Government to appoint not less than 3% of persons with disabilities in every establishment of which one percent, each shall be reserved for persons suffering from blindness or low vision; hearing impairment and locomotor disability or cerebral palsy, in the posts identified for each disabilities.
“The proviso to this Section empowers the Government to exempt any establishment from the provisions of this Section. Insofar as the post of Junior Engineer (Civil) Grade-II is concerned, admittedly no exemption was issued by the Government”, the DB said, adding “it is a fact that though the Act was enacted in the year 1998, the posts in the Public Works (R&B) Department were not identified up to the year 2011 and only after the directions issued by this court in the decision cited supra, the Government thought it fit to identify the posts”.
“The belated identification of posts is now put against the appellants who are otherwise eligible to be appointed under Section 22 of the Act. The appellants are coming within the disabilities of blindness/low vision, and Locomotor disability. The bureaucratic delay in identifying the posts for these disabled persons cannot be a ground to deny appointment to the deserving physically challenged persons”, the DB further said.
With these observations, Division Bench disposed of LPA.
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