Saroj Dehariya Vs. The State of Madhya Pradesh and others
Madhya Pradesh High Court (Division Bench (DB)- Two Judge)
WRIT PETITION, 22358 of 2019, Judgment Date: Jul 23, 2021
Law Laid Down:-
The intention behind enacting the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 as well as the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 is to give a succour to those upon whom the destiny has inflicted various kinds of disabilities and to provide them an opportunity to participate in the social milieu like any other able bodied person.
Despite progressive steps taken by the Courts and the initiatives taken by the Government, the implementation of the Act of 2016 is far from satisfactory. The disabled are victims of discrimination inspite of the beneficial provisions of the Act. The entire struggle of this class of citizens is that they have to fight at two fronts, first is the disablement which the destiny has thrust upon them to override the difficulties in their life and second is the mindset of the society in which they live and their bias that this class would not be able to discharge duties as effectively as the other able bodied persons can do.
Vertical reservation can be granted in favour of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes with reference to Article 16(4) of the Constitution of India and the reservation in favour of physically handicapped with reference to Article 16(1) of the Constitution of India shall be considered as horizontal reservation. The reservation provided to the physically handicapped person relatable to Article 16(1) of the Constitution would be, for the purpose of computation of vertical reservation, adjusted/counted against their respective categories. If, for example, a physically handicapped person selected for appointment happens to belong to Scheduled Caste category, he will be taken to have exhausted one seat of Scheduled Caste category. If however he belongs to open competition (OC) category, he will be placed in that category by making necessary adjustments. The purpose of this is to ensure that horizontal reservation provided within the vertical reservation may not result in exceeding the percentage of the prescribed quota.
The proper and correct course for applying the policy of reservation is to first fill up the Open Competition quota (50%) on the basis of merit and second step would be to fill up each of the social reservation quotas i.e. SC, ST and OBC and then the third step would be to find out how many candidates belonging to special reservations have been selected on the above basis and if that quota is already satisfied, no further question of providing reservation arises. If not so satisfied, the requisite number of special reservation candidates i.e. horizontal reservation shall have to be pushed up and adjusted against their respective social reservation categories by deleting the corresponding number of candidates therefrom.
Saroj Dehariya Vs. The State of Madhya Pradesh and others