Uttarakhand HC: Persons With Disabilities Entitled To Horizontal Reservation Cutting Across "All Categories": HC Quashes UKPSC Recruitment Notification

High Court:   Uttarakhand High Court

Bench:              Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Ramesh Chandra Khulbe

Case No. :         WP(S/B) No.49 of 2022, 

Case Title:        Manish Chauhan and another Vs. State of Uttarakhand and another

Date of Judgement:  27 July 2022

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Case Brief:

The Uttarakhand High Court has quashed an advertisement issued by the Uttarakhand Public Service Commission notifying vacancies for the post of Assistant Professors in Government Colleges, finding it to be in violation of Rule 11(4) of the Rights of Persons with Disability Rules, 2017 and the Supreme Court's decision in Indra Sawhney vs. Union of India and Anr.

The notification prescribed Horizontal reservation in a manner that in the Un-reserved category, no reservation was available to the physically handicapped candidates in the subject of Political Science. Similarly, in the History, no reserved seat was shown for a candidate of disability category who may also be a Scheduled Tribes candidate. 

"The manner in which the State has sought to apply Horizontal reservations is completely contrary to the decision of the Supreme Court in Indra Sawhney (Supra)...Persons with disabilities are entitled to horizontal reservation cutting across all categories." the bench of Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Ramesh Chandra Khulbe observed.

The Court explained that an otherwise eligible and qualified candidate/person with disability would first be allocated a seat and depending on whichever category that person belongs to, i.e. whether the person is a Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, Other Backward Classes, or is a General Category candidate, the seat in that category would stand exhausted.

In Indra Sawhney the Supreme Court had elucidated that Horizontal reservations cut across the vertical reservations and persons selected against this quota will be placed in the appropriate category. "If he belongs to S.C. category he will be placed in that quota by making necessary adjustments; similarly, if he belongs to open competition (O.C.) category, he will be placed in that category by making necessary adjustments."

Similarly, Rule 11(4) of the 2017 Rules prescribes that reservation for persons with disabilities in accordance with the provisions of section 34 of the Act shall be horizontal and the vacancies for persons with benchmark disabilities shall be maintained as a separate class.

In its counter affidavit, the UKPSC  submitted that their manner of working out horizontal reservation had been prescribed by the State of Uttarakhand. The Counter affidavit of State of Uttarakhand  stated that the impugned advertisement was issued in lieu of a government order dated 22.05.2020. The GO had stated that "if under horizontal reservation no eligible candidate is found fit for selection, the selection for the said post will be done as per norms of general selection except for the posts reserved for Divyang (Disabled Person)"

The Court opined that the manner in which the State had sought to apply horizontal reservations was legally unsustainable and the notification was accordingly quashed with liberty to come out with a fresh advertisement strictly in compliance with the law. 

Read the Court judgement embedded below:

J&K HC: Horizontal Reservation implementation requires a separate merit list of the such candidates.

Court:  Jammu and Kashmir High Court

Bench: Hon'ble Mr. Justice Sanjeev Kumar

Case No.: SWP No. 1746/2018

Case Title: Anil Sharma and others v. Chief General Manager, Human Resources Management, Reserve Bank of India and another

Date of Judgement: 19.03.2020

Brief of the Case:

Reserve Bank of India claimed that it had granted 8 Grace Marks to the petitioners seeking the benefit of horizontal reservation being from category of ex-servicemen and persons with disabilities. The court was of the view that the way the respondents have given effect to horizontal reservation provided to the category of ex-servicemen is not in consonance with law and amounts to denial of benefit of reservation provided for such category. The respondents by devising this novel way of operating horizontal reservation defeated the concept of horizontal reservation provided for certain categories like “person with disability” and “ex- servicemen”.  

The bench observed that granting grace marks without actual reservation to the candidates belonging to Handicapped or ex-servicemen category and then comparing there result with open category is not just and fair and not as per horizontal reservation provided by the law in consonance with the Constitutional Art 16(1). 

In   The court observed, "It goes without saying that in the instant selection, there were no minimum standards fixed by the respondents to qualify for selection and therefore, addition of 08 grace marks to the merit of the petitioners was totally inconsequential. It was totally absurd and illogical to compare the merit of the candidates belonging to ex-servicemen category with the merit of last selected in open merit. The whole procedure adopted by the respondents is de-hors the rules and settled position of law as enumerated in the case of Indira Sawhney and others Vs. Union of India, reported in 1992 Supp (3) SCC 210. The petitioners were entitled to the benefit of horizontal reservation and with a view to give effect to such reservation, it was incumbent upon the respondents to prepare a separate merit list of the candidates belong to the categories of EX-I and EX-2 and pick up one candidate with highest merit in the category of EX-I and four candidates in the order of merit from the category EX-2 and place them in the select list of their respective categories." 

Allowing the petition, the court directed the respondents to select and appoint the petitioners as Office Attendants in the Jammu Office of Reserve Bank of India by giving them the benefit of horizontal reservation meant for ex-servicemen. 

Read the order below: