SC sets deadline for quota for differently abled in promotions

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave the Union government four months to issue the necessary instructions to give reservation benefits in promotion to persons with disabilities, telling the Centre that there was no ambiguity in its January 2020 verdict and the Centre should start implementing the provision under the Right of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016.

The Supreme Court, on January 14, 2020, ruled that the reservation for persons with disabilities was applicable to promotions as well, and not just recruitment. The provision, however, was not implemented by the Centre, which filed an application in September 2020 to seek certain clarifications on how to go about implementing the reservation.

“There is no ambiguity in the (Siddaraju v State of Karnataka) judgment of this court…. We direct the Union of India to issue instructions as per the 2016 Act at the earliest and not later than four months from today,” a bench of justices L Nageswara Rao, Sanjeev Khanna and BR Gavai said on Tuesday.

The apex court said the instructions have to be issued under Section 34 of the 2016 Act, which prescribes not less than four per cent reservation for persons with benchmark disabilities.

Additional solicitor general (ASG) Madhavi Divan, appearing for the Centre, earlier sought clarifications on issues such as how to compute vacancies in identified and non-identified posts, whether reservations would have to be extended at the time of induction from state civil services (SCS) or non-scs to Indian Administrative Service as this was considered as promotion, and the extent of reservation within the Group A posts.

The Centre also asked whether the implementation of the judgment must follow the 2016 Act or the Act that existed prior to it, namely Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995.