Blind duo win battle to join IAS but their pleas gather dust

The visually-impaired men cleared Civil Services Examination in 2009 but were awarded services way below their rankings.

Buried in the files of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) are the IAS ambitions of two visually-impaired men who cleared the Civil Services Examination in 2009 but were awarded services way below their rankings.

Acting on the pleas of Ajit Kumar and Ashish Singh Thakur,the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) directed the DoPT on October 8 to induct them into the IAS within eight weeks. That deadline ran out today no step has been taken so far by the DoPT.

Kumar says he even wrote to the Prime Minister,the overall in-charge of the Ministry of Personnel,Public Grievances and Pensions,but received no reply.

Contacted by The Indian Express,V Narayanasamy,Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel,Public Grievances and Pensions,said: The matter is under consideration.

But Kumar calls it discrimination against disabled persons. An OBC,the 30-year-old is an assistant professor at Shyam Lal College in Delhi. He declined to join the Indian Railway Personnel Service (IRPS).

I secured rank 208 but was awarded IRPS,usually awarded to candidates way down the rankings. It was given to those as low down as 512 rank that year. At my rank for an OBC candidate,I was eligible for Indian Foreign Service. Even general category candidates got IPS at this rank, Kumar told The Indian Express.

Thakur,who ranked 435,reluctantly took up the offer and is presently under training for the Indian Postal Service in Bilaspur,his home town in Chhattisgarh.

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Candidates below my rank were awarded Indian Revenue Service but they gave me postal service saying blindness would affect taxation, Thakur said over phone from Bilaspur. He has already done a stint at the Sales Tax Office in Bilaspur.

Both approached CAT in August 2009 seeking that they be allotted the IAS. In July this year,the Supreme Court upheld a Delhi High Court order in a related case which directed the government to fill the backlog in various posts for visually-challenged candidates under The Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities,Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act,1995.

The HC had observed that between 1995 and 2006,only one IAS vacancy for visually challenged candidates was filled as against eight seats.

Kumar and Thakur also cited Section 33 of the Act which directed the government to provide the mandatory three per cent reservation in various jobs to disabled persons. The government,however,responded that implementation of Section 33 is dependent on Section 32 under which the government is authorised to identify reserved posts for disabled candidates.

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The CAT,citing the Supreme Court ruling that reservation under Section 33 is not dependent on identification under Section 32,noted that the Act provided one per cent reservation each to visually handicapped,hearing impaired and persons with locomotor disability and cerebral palsy,and directed the DoPT to induct the duo into the IAS within eight weeks.

The government claims that we cannot make a 100 per cent visually challenged person an IAS officer,whereas there is no such limitation under the Disabilities Act. This argument violates the Constitution and is against our right to equality, said Kumar who is from Mahendragarh,Haryana.