MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court recently granted relief to a Person with Disability (PwD), belonging to scheduled caste, who was not selected to the post of assistant medical officer (Siddha) in 2019. Passing orders on the petition filed by the man in 2020, Justice GR Swaminathan directed the state government to appoint the man in the post, against the existing general vacancy, within a month.
The judge opined that the petitioner could not get selected because the government failed to apply the reservation policy properly. “A mere look at the selection list shows that meritorious scheduled caste candidates were appointed in reserved vacancies, instead of being appointed against open category vacancies,” he observed.
Nearly 12 out of 15 candidates appointed against reserved vacancies meant for scheduled castes ought to have been appointed against general vacancies, he pointed out, adding that this runs contrary to the procedure laid down by the Supreme Court.
Coming down heavily on the selection board, the court said even the special reservation policy was not applied correctly. What the board did was to club all the PwD candidates in one slot. He also criticised the use of 200 point roster.
If they had applied the principle laid down by the Supreme Court in KR Shanthi’s case in 2012, the petitioner would have made it to the selection list, the judge said. “The statutory mandate is that 4% horizontal reservation should be made for PwD candidates. For the post of Assistant Medical Officer (Siddha), candidates having locomotor disabilities alone appear to be suitable.
The petitioner has a disability in the lower part of his left limb. He, therefore, fulfills the statutory requirements,” he held and issued the above direction. He further pointed out that though many SC candidates have scored above the petitioner, they have not come to the court. Citing the Tamil saying that ‘Only the crying child gets milk’, the judge granted relief to the petitioner.