Blindness Reservation & Sight Function Case
Court: High Court of Delhi
Bench: Hon'ble Mr. Justice C. Hari Shankar and Hon'ble Mr. Justice Ajay Digpaul
Case No.: W.P.(C) 938/2025 & CM APPL. 4579/2025 (Connected with W.P.(C) 61/2025 & W.P.(C) 68/2025)
Case Title: Mudit Gupta v. Airport Authority of India and Anr.
Date of Judgment: October 16, 2025
Citation: 2025:DHC:9207-DB
Summary & Brief Background
The Airport Authority of India (AAI) issued Advertisement 03/2023 inviting applications for multiple executive-level vacancies, which legally allocated reserved slots under "Category A" for candidates who are blind or experience low vision
AAI subjected him to a medical examination layout at VMMC & Safdarjung Hospital, which certified that he could not clinically perform functions by "seeing"
Core Arguments & Institutional Contradiction
The Clinical Ocular Defense: AAI maintained that every administrative post carries essential functional demands
. They argued that since "seeing" was explicitly recorded as a foundational requirement, and a specialized medical board certified that the blind candidates could not physically see, the organization was fully justified in disqualifying them . AAI further contended that because the petitioners participated in the selection process with full knowledge of these functional filters, they were legally estopped from challenging the conditions after failing to receive a final appointment . The Structural Reservation Contradiction: The petitioners, represented by Senior Advocate S.K. Rungta (who is himself blind), exposed a major systemic contradiction
. They pointed out that the statutory Expert Committee, acting under Section 33 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 (RPwD Act), had already reviewed these positions and explicitly identified them as suitable for blind individuals . Therefore, the statutory body had already determined that the functional duties of the office could be successfully handled by a blind officer . To deploy a cold medical exam to exclude a candidate based on the exact impairment for which the slot was reserved creates an absurd, self-defeating layout that nullifies legislative reservations . Strikingly, the Union of India itself supported the petitioners, noting that AAI had entirely misconstrued Note 8 to convert it into a tool of medical exclusion .
Key Issues Addressed
- Whether an appointing establishment can legally utilize a clinical or medical examination to override statutory identification and disqualify a candidate based on a disability for which the post was explicitly reserved
. - How the functional requirement of "seeing" must be interpreted within the protective, rights-based regime of the RPwD Act, 2016
. - Whether the principle of estoppel strips a disabled candidate of their locus to contest discriminatory misconstructions of recruitment guidelines if they participated in the selection process
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Observations & Findings of the Court
The Division Bench of the Delhi High Court partly allowed the writ petitions, providing a landmark ruling on inclusive equality and the biological nature of human perception:
The Cognitive Nature of Sight (Brain vs. Eye): In an extraordinary neuro-legal analysis, the Court dismantled the narrow definition of sight, differentiating between biological ocular functions and real conceptual perception:
"The eye is a sense organ. It processes no power of cognition or discernment. It merely fulfils the function of recording of an image which is before it... The recorded image is then transmitted, through electrical signals, to the brain, via the optic nerve. The function of interpreting and understanding the image that was recorded on the retina is performed by the brain. The power of cognition, discernment and understanding, therefore, vests in the brain, not in the eye. Expressed otherwise, the function of sight, which we otherwise attribute to the eye, is in fact largely performed by the brain."
The Court held that if a blind professional is capable of understanding, processing, and navigating legal or financial records through digital assistive frameworks, they legally fulfil the functional attribute of "seeing" . Repudiation of the Medicalized Model: Drawing heavily from the Apex Court's ruling in In re. Recruitment of Visually Impaired in Judicial Services, the Court observed that assessing a candidate’s functional capacity through clinical metrics completely violates the social model of disability
: "...the principle of reasonable accommodation is a concept that not only relates to affording equal opportunity to the persons with disabilities but also it goes further as to ensuring the dignity of the individual by driving home the message that the assessment of a person's suitability, capacity and capability is not to be tested and measured by medical or clinical assessment of the same but must be assessed after providing reasonable accommodation and an enabling atmosphere."
The Mandate for Reasonable Accommodation: The Court emphasized that both the DEPWD working remarks and Note 1 explicitly demand that suitability must be evaluated alongside assistive technologies, digital reading software, and customized adaptations
. Dismissing a candidate without providing these accommodations is an act of indirect discrimination that forces substantive inequality . No Estoppel Against Sacrosanct Rights: Invoking Dr (Major) Meeta Sahai, the Court firmly threw out AAI’s estoppel defense, ruling that participating in a process means accepting standard procedure, not condoning structural illegality
: "In a situation where a candidate alleges misconstruction of statutory rules and discriminating consequences arising therefrom, the same cannot be condoned merely because a candidate has partaken in it... There can be no estoppel against enforcement of such rights. They are sacrosanct, and part of our constitutional ethos."
Note 8 Upheld under Rights-Based Parameters: The Court refused to strike down Note 8 of the DEPWD Notification, clarifying that when properly read, it simply tasks establishments with verifying certificates and assessing candidate requirements in an enabling framework, rather than acting as a gateway for medical exclusion
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Directions Issued
To enforce structural compliance and secure integration, the High Court issued the
- The administrative rejections quashing the candidatures of Mudit Gupta, Amit Kumar, and Deepak Arora were set aside
. - The respondents are directed to conduct a comprehensive non-medical, rights-based re-assessment of the petitioners' functional capabilities within two weeks from the date of the judgment
. - This assessment layout must strictly utilize assistive devices, specialized software, and an enabling atmosphere as mandated by current disability jurisprudence
. - Petitioners who are evaluated as suitable must be extended formal letters of appointment within four weeks of the re-assessment
. - Upon selection, the petitioners will receive notional appointments matching their original batchmates, carrying full continuity of service and all associated seniority benefits, except back wages
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Read the Judgement in Mudit Gupta Vs. AAI dt 16 Oct 2025