Notice to centre, UPSC on disabled quota in civil services exam

The Delhi High Court on Friday issued notice to the central government and the UPSC on a plea seeking to quash the civil services exam notification due to alleged non-implementation of statutory three per cent quota for handicapped applicants.

A division bench of Justices Mukta Gupta and Justice P.S. Teji, while hearing the plea filed by an organisation Sambhavana, asked the ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions and Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to file their response by July 15.

Advocate Pankaj Sinha, appearing for the petitioners, said that UPSC has not implemented the three percent quota for handicapped in exam and it also has not adopted the exam writing policy for disabled on the basis of guidelines of the chief commissioner for persons with disabilities.

The central government and UPSC have not complying with provisions of the Persons With Disabilities Act, it alleged, adding that as per the examination notice, 1,129 vacancies are expected to be filled, out of which only five vacancies have been reserved for candidates with visual impairment.

As per act, it is the statutory obligation of the government to appoint not less than three per cent vacancies for the persons or class of persons with disabilities.

The plea said: "This implies that the minimum level of representation of persons with disabilities deals with the distribution of this three per cent among the three categories of disabilities namely, blind and low vision, hearing impairment, locomotor disabled or cerebral palsy and hence, one per cent of seats should be reserved for each of the said categories."

However, in the examination notice, the three percent reservation has not been adequately meted out by UPSC and hence, "discrimination on the basis of blindness has been clearly shown", it added, also seeking equal bifurcation of the vacancies amongst the three categories.