Kerala High Court insists the 3% reservation computation from 1996 [Judgement Included]

Court: Kerala High Court

Bench: Justice Thottathil B Radhakrishnan and Justice Anu Sivaraman

Case No.: Writ Appeal No. 362 of 2015 ( Against the single judge order 20 Oct 2014 in WP(C).No. 27234 of 2011)

Case Title: Kerala Public Service Commission Vs. E. Dineshan

Act/Law: The Persons with Disabilities Act 1995

Dear Friends,

A good clarification comes from the Kerala High Court. A double bench comprising Justice Thottathil B Radhakrishnan and Justice Anu Sivaraman while hearing on 06 Jan 2016, wednesday, has dismissed a Writ Appeal No. 362 of 2015 titled Kerala Public Service Commission Vs. E. Dineshan, filed by the Kerala Public Service Commission seeking to quash the Single Judge order in WP(C).No. 27234 of 2011.

The Single Judge Justice A.V. Ramakrishna Pillai had  ordered that the reservation has to be computed from the date of enactment of legislation i.e. 1996 and not from the date of a Govt. order. The single judge had quashed the govt. notification to the extent it restricted the benefit of 3% reservation of  persons with disabilities mandated under Section 33 of the Act from 1.2.2010 onwards.

Download the Judgement of the single judge:  WP(C).No. 27234 of 2011 : [PDF File]  [Word File]

Read the Judgement of the single judge below:

Here is a related new from Express news

Kerala HC Upholds Order on Jobs for Physically-Challenged
By Express News Service Published: 07th January 2016 06:00 AM

KOCHI: A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Wednesday upheld the order of the Single Bench declaring that handicapped persons are entitled to get three percent of vacancies in the post of assistant grade II/clerk/junior clerk/cashier from 1996 while making appointment to public sector undertakings.

A Division Bench comprising Justice Thottathil B Radhakrishnan and Justice Anu Sivaraman issued the order while dismissing an appeal filed by the Kerala Public Service Commission seeking to quash the Single Judge order. The Single Judge had also directed the Kerala State Electricity Board, Kerala State Road Transport Corporation, Kerala State Financial Enterprises and Kerala Headload Workers Welfare Fund Board to report all existing vacancies to enable the PSC to advise candidates from the shortlist. The commission contended that the vacancies which had arisen during the validity of the rank list could only be filled. And the backlog vacancies could be filled only through a special recruitment drive.

The single judge had also quashed the state government order clarifying that the reservation of three per cent for disabled persons could be implemented only from February 1, 2010. The petitioner submitted that three per cent vacancies had to be reserved for the handicapped persons in terms of Sections 32 and 33 of the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995.

The Bench said that the single judge verdict was in accordance with the principles laid down by the Supreme Court judgement in implementing reservation available to physically handicapped persons.

Lets proactively ensure that all Indian Government websites conform to WCAG 2.0

Dear Colleagues,

The NIC guidelines known as the "Guidelines for Indian Government Websites (GIGW)" mandate that all Government websites shall conform to the international accessibility standards, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. 

Persons with disabilities use different assistive technologies to browse the web. However, if the websites or documents are not constructed as per the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the assistive technology fails to read them thus barring a person with disability from accessing the website thus rendering the website inaccessible.

India signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2007 and ratified it a few months later. The Member States are, obliged to proactively promote digital inclusion of persons with disabilities. 

Govt. of India has launched Open Government Platform - OGPL To Promote Transparency And Citizen Engagement (www.ogpl.gov.in). OGPL is a joint product from India and United States to promote transparency and greater citizen engagement by making more government data, documents, tools and processes publicly available. This will be available, as an open source platform. By making this available in useful machine-readable formats it allows developers, analysts, media & academia to develop new applications and insights that will help give citizens more information for better decisions. OGPL has become an example of a new era of diplomatic collaborations that benefit the global community that promote government transparency, citizen-focused applications, and enrich humanity.

However, if the WCAG is not implemented, it will render the OGPL movement also futile. It is for each of us to take up the matters of inaccessibility of websites of govt. departments with the state commissioners for persons with disabilities. Visit section on How to write a petition

Here are some useful documents:

• Guidelines for Government Websites
• PDF Techniques for WCAG 2.0

SC directs States & UTs to consider Acid Attack Survivors in Disability List [Judgement Included]

Dear Friends,

On Monday i.e. 07th December 2015, the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India, while hearing WP(C) No. 867/2013 titled Parivartan Kendra Versus Union of India and Others,  directed all states to treat "Acid Survivors" as disabled persons and extend job reservation and social welfare schemes. While it's good thought to extend the benefits of this benevolent legislation to mainstream and empower acid survivors, will there be corresponding increase in the %age of reservation? Which disability group would give up their share ? 

A bench of Justices M Y Eqbal and C Nagappan said that steps must be taken to bring such victims to the national mainstream and putting them in the category of disabled person would be a step in that direction. The victims can claim benefits under the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act if they are brought in the disability list.

The central law- The Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act 1995 provides for reservation in jobs etc to the tune of 3% where 1% each is reserved for Visually Impaired (both low vision and Blind), Orthopedic Disabilities (including cerebral palsy) and Hearing Impaired. There are several other categories defined in the definition of a person with disability in the Act viz. Leprosy Cured, Mental Illness, Mental Retardation etc. but the reservation is not extended to any other categories except the above three. The judgement is silent on the process of granting such reservation as the law currently has no such provision. The direction in the last para is :

"Disposing of the present writ petition, we additionally direct all the States and Union Territories to consider the plight of such victims and take appropriate steps with regard to inclusion of their names under the disability list."

Let us see how the States and UTs respond to this direction coming from none other than top court of the country. But one thing is certain, in today's scenario, no disability group would be willing to let go their share!

Judgement

The Supreme Court judgement can be accessed here at link: Writ Petition Civil No. 867 of 2013 titled Parivartan Kendra Versus Union of India and Others

Here is a media coverage from Times of India: 

Related News
Times of India-  Bring Acid Attack survivors within disable person list:- SC to Govt.

Visually Challenged / Blind will be considered for Ktk Adm Service exams from Next Year

Barred from even applying for the KAS Examination this year by Karnataka Public Service Commission, the visually impaired / blind candidates can look for KAS exams from next year where RPSC will also compensate for the number of reservation seats that might have fallen in their kitty. 

However, this doesn't compensate the opportunity lost by those candidate who may not have even looked at the stick of reservation and wanted to compete on their own merit. Their right to equality has been infringed and there can be no compensation of loss of opportunity and loss of time. This has not been appreciated either by the Court nor by the Govt. of Karnataka.  KPSC must extend further age relaxation to such candidates in the coming year who might have become overage due to such a lapsed opportunity to mitigate at least some loss.

Here is the news coverage from Deccan Herald.

HC orders quota for visually challenged in KAS posts

Bengaluru: Nov 17, 2015, DHNS:

The High Court has disposed of a petition, directing the Karnataka Public Service Commission and the State government to incorporate three per cent reservation for persons with low vision and the visually challenged for the posts of KAS officers or group ‘A’ posts in the next appointments.

The National Federation of the Blind had approached the court challenging the KPSC notification in January 2015, which had barred visually-challenged and those with low vision from applying for the posts. However, the court had directed the government to form a committee to examine possibility of including such persons. 

KPSC later issued another notification in October 2015, including persons with low vision and visually challenged as eligible to apply for the said posts in various government departments under the three per cent quota for persons with disabilities.

KPSC had called for applications for two posts of assistant commissioner in commercial tax and finance department and one post of executive officer in the Panchayat Raj department.

Advocate Jayna Kothari, appearing for the Federation, sought a stay on the KPSC’s exams and appointments. However, the stay was not granted, KPSC exams were held and necessary appointments were made in due course. 

A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice S K Mukherjee and Justice B V Nagarathna passed an order stating that as the KPSC’s exercise of appointments had already been carried out, the petitioner’s contention cannot be considered this year. 

However, the bench directed KPSC and the government to incorporate the necessary percentage for people with low vision and visually challenged in next KPSC appointments for the said posts.

Source: Deccan Herald 

Consent Decree filed to ensure Physically Accessible Polling Centres in Augusta County, Virginia

Dear Colleagues,

The US Justice Department announced today that it has filed a complaint and proposed consent decree today in the U. S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia resolving allegations that Augusta County, Virginia has discriminated on the basis of disability by failing to provide physically accessible polling places to people with mobility and vision disabilities. Title II of the ADA requires public entities to ensure that all of their polling places are accessible to people with disabilities.

Under the consent decree, which must be approved by the court, the County agreed to make permanent architectural changes to a number of polling place facilities, and to provide temporary measures such as portable ramps and temporary doorbells at others, to provide accessible polling places throughout the County. The County, which cooperated with the United States, also agreed to revise its policies and polling place survey instrument, and provide training to poll officials.

Click here to read the Consent Decree. However, it throws light that disability continues to be a subject last on the agenda of administration -some times due to lack of awareness and while other times due to lack of enforcement - both in developed as well in developing world. Glad that Deptt of Justice has taken this initiative to make Polling Process accessible to residents with Disabilities in Augusta County and also to create mechanism for monitoring and enforcement for a longer term.