'Provide Separate Cut-off' : Supreme Court Issues Guidelines For Recruitment Of Persons With Disabilities In District Judiciary

In a major development, the Supreme Court issued several general directions relating to the recruitment of persons with benchmark disabilities (PwBD) in judicial services. The direction issued would be followed for the selection of candidates to the District Judiciary across the country.

The bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud and comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra observed that till the pending orders, the directions issued ought to be adhered to by the High Courts or State Public Service Commissions, as the case may be while carrying out the recruitment exercises in the District Judiciary.

The following directions were issued: -

(i) The High Courts/ PSCs, while making recruitment to judicial service, ought to provide separate qualifying marks for persons with benchmark disabilities in the Preliminary Examination. The qualifying marks should ordinarily be the same as for SC/ST candidates or can even be lower if so prescribed by the relevant Rules. If the Rules are silent, then the competent authority can lay down such qualifying marks;

(ii) After the Preliminary Examination is held, a separate cut-off should be prescribed for persons with benchmark disability to ensure that candidates equal to 10/15/20 times the number of posts reserved for PwBD candidates, are eligible to take the main exam. As done by the High Court of Jharkhand, a separate cut-off can be provided for:

(a) blindness and low vision;

(b) deaf and hard of hearing;

(c) locomotor disability;

(d) Others, i.e. PwBD candidates covered by Section 34 (1) (d) & 34 (1) (e);

(iii) The High Court/ PSC ought to lay down separate qualifying marks for the Mains Examination for PwBD candidates which can be the same as SC/ST candidates or can be even lower if so required by the relevant Rules. If the Rules are silent, then the competent authority can lay down such qualifying marks;

(iii) While declaring the results for the Mains Examination, a separate cut-off should be prescribed for PwBD candidates [who have the qualifying marks] who can appear for the interview so that sufficient persons belonging to PwBD category take the interview which is normally 3/5 times the number of vacancies for PwBD candidates. At this stage also the recruiting agency may be able to follow the bifurcation as provided in Section 34 (1) of the Act; and

(iv) After the interview at the time of final selection, PwBD candidates who clear the minimum qualifying marks in the Mains Examination and Interview ought to be recruited to the service based on horizontal reservation i.e., persons with PwBD who are on their own merit eligible for General / OBC / SC / ST / EWS seats should be counted towards the total reserved vacancies."

Further, the Court stated that “Reservations for persons with disabilities shall be horizontal in nature and vacancies for persons with benchmark disability shall be maintained as a separate class.”

The Court directed that “A copy of this order shall be circulated to the Registrars General of the High Courts so that they can be placed before the Chief Justice and the Committee Incharge of recruitment in the District Judiciary for compliance prospectively.”

The Court said that the High Courts shall bring their rules in conformity with these directions and report compliance.

The matter is next listed after two weeks.

Background

The Court took suo motu cognizance of a letter sent to CJI DY Chandrachud by the mother of one of the visually impaired candidates against her child's exclusion from seeking appointment to judicial services.

Converting the letter petition into a petition under Article 32 of the Constitution, the CJI-led Bench had issued notice to the Secretary General of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, the State of Madhya Pradesh, and the Union of India.

During the hearing, Sr. Adv. Gaurav Agrawal appearing as Amicus Curiae expressed the difficulty of not having a separate cut-off for persons with disabilities due to which they were not able to qualify for the interview. Following this, the court indicated that the issue of a separate cut-off for the PwBD candidates needs to be heard to lay down the law. However, as an interim measure, the bench led by Justice PS Narasimha passed an order that the candidates of various disabilities who appeared for the final examination will be allowed to appear for an interview if they have secured minimum marks as provided for the SC/ST candidates.

Case Title: IN RE RECRUITMENT OF VISUALLY IMPAIRED IN JUDICIAL SERVICES SMW(C) No. 2/2024

Citation : 2024 LiveLaw (SC) 873

Click here to read/download the order

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