Kerala High Court: Non-consideration of VH candidate by Kannur University illegal

Terming the non-consideration of VH candidate and appointment of another candidate on the post reserved for persons with Disabilities as illegal, High Court has directed the Kannur University to appoint the visually impaired petitioner within two months.


HC to the aid of visually challenged woman

KOCHI, June 9, 2015
K.S. SUDHI

The High Court of Kerala has come to the support of Prasannakumari, a visually challenged woman from Chottanikkara, who appeared for an interview to a post of lecturer in law reserved for disabled persons in Kannur University.

Justice A.K. Jayasankaran Nambiar of the High Court ordered Kannur University to consider the suitability of Ms. Prasannakumari “for the post notified by treating her as a candidate who has the necessary age qualification for the post and is otherwise eligible for the post.”

The court also ordered the university to complete the aforesaid exercise within two months.

In her writ petition, the 40-year-old woman stated that she applied for the post of lecturer in law, reserved for the physically challenged, in 2008 and appeared for the interview on October 5, 2011.

Later, she received information that another woman had been appointed to the post.

The petitioner approached the court to quash the appointment and direct the university to consider her for the post.

Allowing the petition, the court held that the “action of the university in not considering the suitability of the petitioner for the post of lecturer in law, under the quota earmarked for the physically challenged candidates, is clearly illegal.”

The court also declared illegal the appointment of another candidate to the post that was intended for physically challenged candidates, consequent to a finding that no such candidate was available.

The appointment of another candidate as the lecture in law was also annulled by the court.

Source:  The Hindu 

A blind candidates wins legal battle to become a judge in Spain

Please refer to my earlier blog entry dated 01st June 2009  titled Can a Blind / Visually Impaired Person work as a Judge / Magistrate ? This was subsequently also posted on 06 June 2009, more than 5 years ago at Changemakers.com titled How can a blind / visually impaired person work as a Judge?

Delighted to learn that after a protracted battle, the Spanish Court has ruled in the favour of a visually impaired law graduate Mr. Pérez Castellanos’ restoring his equal right to become a Judge like his fellow law graduates.

An online petition on Change.org collected more than 100,000 signatures in support of Pérez Castellanos’ legal struggle.

Here is the news published in The Local:

Blind man wins battle to become judge

Published: 14 May 2014 11:49 GMT+02:00

Spanish legal authorities have ruled in favour of a blind 23-year-old law graduate who called for people with his disability to be allowed to become judges.

“Can a blind person like me carry out the work duties of a magistrate?” was the question sent by Gabriel Pérez Castellanos to the official body days after completing his Law degree in July 2013.

Ten months on and several adjournments later, Pérez Castellanos finally got the response he was hoping for.

Spain’s General Council of the Judiciary ruled unanimously on Tuesday that blind people can access state entrance exams to qualify as judges even though their job responsibilities may have to be adapted to suitable cases.

According to the report, evidence used in court that "can only be assessed with one’s eyesight" is limited and "not enough to completely rule out blind people from a career in the judiciary".

"I'm very happy, of course," the young man told The Local.

Having scored 7.9 in his Law degree (equivalent to a First Class Honours degree in the UK), Pérez Castellanos is now completing a Master’s degree at Garrigues, Spain's biggest law firm.

"The plan is to focus on labour law," he said of his future plans.

And while the budding lawyer admitted it would be more difficult for a blind  person to be a judge — as would be the case for many professions — he thought none of the challenges were insurmountable. 

"The main task of judges is to make decisions based on their knowledge of the law," he said.

Pérez Castellanos told the Local doesn't view himself as a spokespeson for blind people but admits he had been amazed, and delighted, by the repsonse to his situation. 

Online petition website Change.org collected more than 100,000 signatures in support of Pérez Castellanos' legal struggle.

Brazil, France, Peru and the UK already employ blind judges as stipulated in the UN's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. 

Source: The Local

Delhi HC redefines the Scope of Powers of Chief Commissioner Disabilities

Dear Friends,

The Delhi High Court has been increasingly relying on the Court of Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (CCPD in short) for disposal of cases / writ petitions filed on the subjects involving issues related to disability rights. The High Court has been transferring petitions and asking parties to appear before the CCPD with directions to CCPD to decide the matter within a time bound manner.

We had seen earlier that the High Court sought intervention of the court of CCPD in coming to a conclusion on a matter related to nursery admission for children with disabilities under the RTE and. 

Now the Hon'ble Court has issued the mandamus thereby forwarding the PILs filed by Score Foundation & AICB  against DSSB and, Govt. of Delhi challenging  an advertisement issued by the Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Board (DSSSB) as the said advertisement did not provide reservation for the visually impaired on two posts, which are identified for this disability category. These posts are Special Educator and TGT Computer Teacher’ stenographer & telephone operator.

While passing an important order on 8th May, 2014 in the matter, the Delhi High Court ruled that the post of Computer Teacher in schools is deemed to be identified for reservation and appointment of the visually impaired. 

The  High Court issuing the mandamus that Chief Commissioner will decide the matter and issue directions in the matter pronounced an empowering interpretation of Section 58 of the Persons With Disabilities Act. The court stated that the Chief Commissioner for Persons With Disabilities is a “Statutory body” who has the powers to “Ensure that the rights made available to persons with disabilities are given effect to. Meaning thereby, those who are subject to the provisions of the Act are to be made accountable for their acts and if it is found that an organization is not implementing the provisions of the Act the said organization being compelled to do so”.

The judgment further goes on to state “this would mean that the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities has the statutory power to ensure that such posts which are identified for reservation concerning visually differently abled persons are filled up from the said/category of persons”.

While referring the two petitions in reference for final adjudication to the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, The High Court directed that the CCPD would dispose of the matter in three days time and his orders would be complied with by all concerned without “demur”.

This important judgment will not only ensure equitable reservation for visually impaired persons in recruitments, but also provide much needed teeth to the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities to enforce his directions. Needless to say that this judgement can be cited in various states wherever the respondents organisations challenge the power of the Court of Commissioner Disabilities.

Click here  for the Common Judgement of the Hon'ble High Court in the following two cases clubbed together     (in PDF)     (in Word File) :

• WP (C) 1675 of 2014 titled Score Foundation and Anr Versus Min. of Social Justice and Empowerment & Others
• WP (C) 2848 of 2014 titled All India Confederation of Blind Versus DSSB and Others

The Chief Commissioner for persons with disabilities subsequently heard the matter and ordered the Ministry of Social Justice to reanalyse and submit a consolidated list of identified posts for persons with disabilities and ordered DSSSB to republish posts for, and reserve one percent seats for persons with visual impairment. 

Click here for the Judgement of The Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (Accessible typed PDF copy)    (Scanned copy of original Order)

Why step-motherly treatment to Visually Impaired in Jobs?

Dear Friends,

From a long time, the Visually Disabled sector has been a victim of silent discrimination in the process of reservations in the jobs identified for them. The posts have been either not reserved for them to the mandatory number and where reserved, they were kept vacant on some or the other pretext. Many RTI replies to this effect revealed this truth but Departments failed to react on representations and petitions from the user groups and their organisation.

Over and above the Memorandum from the DOPT reducing the definition of the backlog and allowing the old vacancies to lapse further created a grim situation.

In such a scenario, the judgement in the present PIL has come as a relief to the disability sector. We hope that the Government Departments shall conform to the time period set by the court and fill in the vacancies.

I shall post the original judgement for your information in due course of time.

Here is the news on the Judgement by the Delhi High Court

Reserve jobs for visually-impaired as per law, Delhi High Court tells Centre New Delhi, Dec 22:

Accepting a plea filed by a group of visually-impaired persons, the Delhi High Court has asked the Union government to comply with the provisions of the Disabilities Act and reserve jobs for such candidates in the government and PSUs.

In a recent judgement, a Division Bench of Justice A P Shah and Justice S Muralidhar directed the Centre to fully comply with the Disabilities Act, according to which 3 percent jobs should be reserved for disabled persons, including 1 percent for the visually-impaired candidates. Giving a

deadline to the Central government till 2010 to fill up the job backlog; the Bench set up a committee to monitor that the court order was complied with by the government.

However, the court authorised the committee to appoint the non-disabled persons in exceptional cases.

The court order followed a PIL filed by National Blind Federation through advocate S K Rungta accusing the government of adopting step-motherly attitude towards the disabled. He submitted before the court that job reservation was given to physically challenged and hearing impaired persons in government establishments but visually weak or blind persons were deprived from their entitlement of 1 out of 3 percent under the Disabilities Act.

Bureau Report

http://www.zeenews.com/nation/2008-12-23/493155news.html