The Apex Court on Friday dismissed a plea as withdrawn, alleging inadequate seats reserved for persons with benchmark disabilities (PwBDs) in Civil Services, while granting liberty to the petitioner organization to approach the Delhi High Court for the grant of relief claimed in the instant petition.
The Division Bench comprising Justice L. Nageswara Rao and Justice B.R Gavai was hearing a plea by a disability rights organization claiming that the reservation of jobs for PwBDs for various posts in the Civil Services, filled through the Civil Services Examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), is not in accordance with the Right to Person with Disabilities Act, 2016.
The Bench asked the petitioner organization to approach the High Court for the relief claimed in the petition, stating that- “why should we permit you to by-pass the normal process of petition being filed in the High Court? If we start entertaining writ petitions, then we cannot make exceptions. We’ll have to entertain every case that comes here.”
“The norm is that we don’t entertain petitions directly. The High Courts also can decide your cases,” added the Bench.
Advocate Pankaj Sinha, representing the petitioner organisation, sought liberty to withdraw the instant petition and approach the Delhi High Court, which is already seized of a petition challenging the Civil Services Examination-2020, the subject-matter of which involves certain reliefs sought in the instant petition.
The Bench, while granting the permission as prayed for, requested the Delhi High Court to decide the petition expeditiously within a span of three months.
Filed by Evara Foundation, the PIL challenged the Civil Services Examination Rules, 2021, notified by the Department of Personnel and Training, as also the advertisement dated March 4, 2021, published by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) in respect of the 2021 Civil Services Examination, inviting applications for filing up 712 vacancies for various Civil Services.
According to the petition, under Section 34 of the RPWD Act, the Government is mandated to reserve not less than 4 percent of the total number number of vacancies for PwBDs. The plea claims that the advertisement notifying for the conduct of Civil Services Examination 2021, failed to provide requisite reservation of seats for PwBDs in civil services examination inasmuch as vacancies for only 22 seats is advertised instead of 29 seats.
The plea inter alia sought quashing of the 2021 Civil Services Examination advertisement and implementation of the provisions of Section 34 of the RPWD Act by equally bifurcating the vacancies among all the categories of Persons with Disabilities.
In addition, the plea prayed for a proper assessment of all the backlog vacancies reserved for all the categories of PwBDs since 1996 and filling up such backlog vacancies arising since the year 1996 till date.
The plea further sought for granting unlimited number of attempts to all PwBDs, thereby placing them at par with SC/ST category candidates.
In a plea filed by the petitioner organisation before the Delhi High Court Bench of Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh, challenging CSE-2020, the DoPT informed the Bench that the Indian Police Service (IPS); the Railway Protection Force (RPF); the Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands Police Service (DANIPS); and the Puducherry Police Service (PONDIPS) are exempted from the provisions of RPWD Act, 2016. The Bench directed that the result of CSE-2020 shall be subject to the outcome of the petition pending before it.
The petition is filed by AOR Shashank Singh.