THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As a child, B Unnikrishnan survived a freak accident that damaged his spine and left him with over 40% disability. Scoliosis made it difficult to stand for long periods. Decades later, that same survival instinct would carry him through a different kind of ordeal: a decade-long legal war against a government that denied him a promotion he was legally entitled to.
The battle finally ended on May 19, when the state government, facing a contempt of court proceeding, issued orders promoting Dr Unnikrishnan as additional director of health services -- with retrospective effect from October 2017.
It had taken eight years and a Supreme Court victory to get there.
The Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, 2016, was always on his side. Section 34 of the legislation mandates a minimum 4% reservation for persons with benchmark disabilities across all government cadre groups. The law was clear. The system simply wasn’t listening.
While his peers made their way up the career ladder, Dr Unnikrishnan was transferred to posts at the level of assistant and deputy director -- first at Parassala Taluk Headquarters Hospital, 30km from Thiruvananthapuram, and later at Peroorkada District Hospital. He drove himself to work every day, spine and all. Had the government honoured his claim when it was first due, he would have been in contention for the post of director itself.
The postings, however, did not break him. During his five years at Parassala, the hospital became a consistent winner of the National Health Mission’s Kayakalp Award, which recognises outstanding standards in sanitation and hygiene. It won three times on his watch.
“By dragging a disabled person through long court battles and relegating him to lower posts at faraway places, years of fruitful service have been lost,” he said.
Dr Unnikrishnan, who once served as personal physician to former Chief Minister K Karunakaran, believes his struggle was compounded by more than just his disability. “I faced political vendetta,” he said.
True to form, Dr Unnikrishnan isn’t celebrating just yet. When the government issued his promotion order, they included a caveat: the ruling would not act as a precedent for other cases. It was a clause designed to isolate his victory, ensuring that other disabled employees would still have to fight their own lonely battles. For him, that is unacceptable.
“The order says it is valid only for me. But there are a lot of disabled persons like me. The chief minister should intervene and make it applicable for all disabled people. It is their right,” he said.
For now, the promotion exists only on paper. Despite the order being issued, Dr Unnikrishnan is yet to receive a posting. His lawyers, P Nandakumar and Vivek Vijayakumar, who stood by him through the long legal journey, helped make that order possible.
But the fight, it seems, isn’t quite over.
