Supreme Court Allows Candidate With Blindness To Attend Interview For Civil Judge Selection

“The persons selected against this quota will be placed in the appropriate category so that if a candidate, for instance belongs to the Scheduled Caste category, such a candidate will be placed in that quota by making necessary adjustments. In other words, once selected, the candidate would be placed in the category to which he or she belongs after making necessary adjustments.”

The present petitioner suffered from blindness and had qualified the preliminary examinations to appear for the main exams. In the mains, the petitioner scored 113.5 marks but was not called for the interview because he failed to fulfil the cut-off of the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category to which he belonged.

Before the bench, Senior Advocate Shadan Farasat, for the petitioner, stressed that persons with benchmark disabilities undergo their own unique obstacles which are not only social hardships but also physiological challenges in preparing for the exams and thus, it was not fair to equate them with persons in other reserved care like SC/ST/ EWS when it comes to deciding cut-offs for interview calls. Senior Advocate Gaurav Agarwal, who is assisting the Court as an amicus curiae in a suo motu case regarding the recruitment of persons with blindness to the judicial service, also made submissions supporting the petitioner. 

The Court noted that as per the scheme of the syllabus of the exam, a minimum cut-off of 30% is required for each of the Law Papers and 35% marks of the aggregate in the Main Examinations for SC/ST and PwD candidates. The petitioner did fulfil this criteria.

Rule 10 of the Rajasthan Judicial Service Rules 2010 provides for reservation for vacancies for SC/ST/OBC/EWS and PwD and women.

Rule 10(4) makes reference to the rules by the State made from time to time. In view of this , the Court referred to Rule 5(1) of the Rajasthan Rights of Persons with Disability Rules 2018 (in line with Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016) which provides 4% reservation in direct recruitment in cadre for persons with benchmark disabilities which reads:

“1) In every establishment 4% percent of the vacancies of direct recruitment in the cadre shall be reserved for persons or class of persons with benchmark disabilities according to the section 34 of the Act. In the posts identified for each disability by the Government of India under section 33 and such reservation shall be treated as horizontal reservation and the vacancies for persons with benchmark disabilities shall be maintained as a separate class”

The bench referred to the recent decision in Rekha Sharma v. The Rajasthan High Court , Jodhpur in which it was held by the Bench of Justice Bela Trivedi and Justice SC Sharma that non-fixation of the cut-off marks for the category of persons with benchmark disability falling under an Overall Horizontal Reservation could neither be said to be arbitrary nor violative of the Fundamental Rights. In the said case, reference was made to Paragraph 812 of Indira Sawhney v UOI :

“We are also of the opinion that this rule of 50% applies only to reservations in favour of backward classes made under Article 16(4). A little clarification is in order at this juncture : all reservations are not of the same nature. There are two types of reservations, which may, for the sake of convenience, be referred to as 'vertical reservations' and 'horizontal reservations'. The reservations in favour of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other backward classes [under Article 16(4)] may be called vertical reservations whereas reservations in favour of physically handicapped [under clause (1) of Article 16] can be referred to as horizontal reservations. Horizontal reservations cut across the vertical reservations — what is called interlocking reservations. To be more precise, suppose 3% of the vacancies are reserved in favour of physically handicapped persons; this would be a reservation relatable to clause (1) of Article 16. The persons selected against this quota will be placed in the appropriate category; if he belongs to SC category he will be placed in that quota by making necessary adjustments; similarly, if he belongs to open competition (OC) category, he will be placed in that category by making necessary adjustments. Even after providing for these horizontal reservations, the percentage of reservations in favour of backward class of citizens remains — and should remain — the same. This is how these reservations are worked out in several States and there is no reason not to continue that procedure.”

The Court thus noted that the reservations for the persons with benchmark disabilities are horizontal in nature- cutting across the vertical reservations.

The Court directed that the petitioner shall be called for an interview as part of the ongoing interview process and shall be duly assessed by the Committee during the course of the interview. The High Court of Rajasthan was also directed to file its counter affidavit by November 1.

The matter will now be heard on November 4.

SIDDHARTH SHARMA VS. HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT RAJASTHAN| Writ Petition (Civil) No.710/2024

Click here to read the order