Rajasthan High Court Asks State To Consider Representation For Inclusion Of Persons With Hearing Impairment Under PwD Act

A Division Bench comprising of Chief Justice Indrajit Mahanty and Justice Satish Kumar Sharma has however asked the Government to review its policy in light of a notification issued by Union of India on January 4, 2021.

As per the Petitioner, persons with hard of hearing (HH) have been included for the purpose of consideration for appointment as Primary School Teachers under the abovesaid notification.

In this backdrop, the Division Bench has ordered,

"the State of Rajasthan shall consider amending its earlier notification and to bring it in line with the suggestions made by the Union of India to the extent it intends to do so and without expressing any opinion in this regard, we call upon the State Government to issue necessary modified notification under the Act of 2016 and shall reconsider the applicability of the notification issued by the Union of India in all the various departments of the State of Rajasthan within a period of three months from today."

The Petitioner had placed reliance on a recent notification issued by the Union of India dated 04.01.2021 notified by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in terms of which identified posts are to be reserved for persons with disabilities after review of such list.

He asserted that Primary School Teachers, other persons with hard of hearing (HH) have been included for the purpose of consideration for appointment and reasons thereof have been stated in the said notification.

He had also argued that blind people were included in the area of reservation for recruitment of Primary School Teachers, in terms of directions issued by the High Court in State of Rajasthan Versus Vikas Kumar Agarwal (2013).

However, the Petitioner and persons similarly placed with him were not considered as a reserved category under the 2016 Act.

The Court expressed hope and trust that the State of Rajasthan will take an early decision in this regard and thus refrained from granting relief to the Petitioner. It said,

"The petitioner is not entitled to any relief before the decision of the State Government to be taken in light of the said notification dated 04.01.2021 issued by Union of India. Therefore, the present writ petition is hereby dismissed."

Case Tile: Kaushalya v. State of Rajasthan & Ors.

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