Supreme Court to monitor appointments of disabled persons in public sector

In a case filed by the National Federation for the Blind in the Supreme Court of India, the Court has directed the Central Government to provide a status report on compliance with the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995 with regard to the hiring of persons with disabilities in the public sector. The Court will consider the report on September 1, 2015.  The law provides a 3% reservation quota for disabled persons, but the Union and State Governments have been lax in implementing it. Earlier, on 24th Match 2015, the Centre had informed the Court that as many as 12,700 vacancies were required to be filled by disabled persons since 1996, but as this was not done, it constituted a backlog. The Court then directed the Government to indicate in a report as to what steps were being taken to fulfull the backlog, including how many vacancies had been advertised and at what stage of the recruitment process they were. The Court also indicated that it may set up a special monitoring committee to ensure that the backlog was filled in a timely manner.