It took 9 years for a BEST conductor to finally prove he is differently-abled

After running from one hospital to another for over nine years now, a BEST employee finally got some respite. The Bombay High Court on Wednesday ordered the BEST not to ter minate the services of one of its conductors, who attained over 41% disability in a bike accident.

A bench of Justice Manish Pitale has also ordered the BEST to pay Rs 50,000 as compensation to Sadashiv Gaikwad, who has been out of service since 2011.

As per the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, any employee, who suffers from less than 40 per cent disability while in service and is certified of ineligible for even an alternate work, s/he can be ter minated from the job.

Having considered Gaikwad's plight, Justice Pitale said, "It is important to note that at the behest of the BEST, Gaikwad was made to run from pillar to post for an invariably long period of time to undergo medical tests for deter mining his disability quotient with three leading hospitals in Mumbai, viz; KEM, Lokmanya Tilak Memorial (Sion) and Sir. J.J. hospitals."

"If one sees the amount of time which has been spent by him in undergoing the visits and medical tests physiotherapy, rehabilitation therapy, etc. in these three hospitals over a period of several years then the certificates issued by these hospitals will have to be scrutinised minutely and considered," the judge said, adding that the KEM and Sion hospitals have issued certificates after a detailed analysis, scrutiny, quarantining and effective check-up.

The judge further noted that based on the certificates of KEM and Sion hospitals, Gaikwad was given an alter nate job for a period of 15 months but later on referred to JJ hospital.

"Therefore once the BEST had come to this decision on the basis of the disability certificates issued by the two leading hospitals, there was virtually no reason to recommend him for a third opinion to JJ hospital, which did not conduct any medical tests," Justice Pitale noted.