From Psycho-social Disability to Becoming a Judge
The Delhi High Court has taken a prima facie view that a person with bipolar affective disorder, a psychosocial disability, is eligible to be appointed as a judge pursuant to being successful in the Delhi Judicial Services examination and the variation in the extent to which he is affected cannot be a reason to deny him the benefit of reservation in the post.
(Supreme Court order and judgment dated 23.03.1993, case citation (1993) 2 SCC 411)
The issue before the Supreme Court was whether visually impaired persons could sit for the Civil Services Examination. The Court held that there were several jobs in the Civil Services such as post of Administrative Officer that could be performed by visually impaired persons. Such jobs/posts had been identified and notified by the Government of India in 1986. Since these jobs had to be filled by the Civil Services Examination, the Court said that the UPSC must permit visually impaired (including totally blind) persons to take the examination with the help of a scribe (i.e. reader/writer) or be permitted to take the examination in Braille.
(Supreme Court order and judgment dated 30.08.2007 in Case No. Civil Appeal 3984/2007)
In this precedent setting case, the Supreme Court held that vacancies reserved for persons with disabilities could not be further restricted to SC/ST/OBC categories but rather must be open to all categories of persons with disabilities. The Court said: “A disabled is a disabled. The question of making any further reservation on the basis of caste, creed or religion ordinarily may not arise. They constitute a special class.”
(Delhi High Court judgment and order dated 25.02.2009 in Writ Petition No. 5429/2008)
The question before the Court was whether the UPSC and Government of India were mandated to implement the backlog (i.e. shortfall) in the reservation for persons with disabilities since 1996, when the Persons with Disabilities Act came into force. The Court held in the affirmative. Finding that a total of 785 vacancies had been filled in the Indian Administrative Services from 1996 to 2006, the Court said that one percent i.e. 8 vacancies ought to have been reserved for and filled by visually impaired persons, but this was not done and only one visually impaired had been appointed in 2005, leaving 7 vacancies unfilled. Therefore, the UPSC and Government of India were bound to fill these vacancies from the available candidates for the 2006 Civil Services Examination. On this basis, the Court directed the Government of India to appoint the petitioner Ravi Prakash Gupta, a totally blind person, to the Indian Administrative Service. This decision of the Delhi High Court was affirmed by the Supreme Court of India on appeal by the judgment dated 7.7.2010.