Granting backdated promotion to blind Haryana govt employee, HC defines ‘measure of compassionate state’

Law must bend toward inclusion, says Punjab and Haryana HC, granting relief to the forest department staffer, who spent two decades fighting the battle for his rightful promotion.

No employee can be excluded from consideration for promotion solely because of disability, said Punjab & Haryana HC | Commons

Gurugram: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that the law must bend towards inclusion while directing the Haryana government to grant retrospective promotion with consequential benefits to a visually impaired employee of forest department.

In his order delivered 1 December, Justice Sandeep Moudgil said that the right to be free from disability-based discrimination under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, deserves the same protection as a fundamental right.

No employee, the judge said, can be excluded from consideration for promotion solely because of disability, reinforcing the need for inclusive governance in public employment.

The HC directed the Haryana government to grant backdated promotions to Bhim Singh, who has spent over two decades fighting for what was rightfully his.

The petitioner joined the Haryana forest department as a ‘mali’ (gardener) in 1998. Though he was the only visually impaired employee in his cadre and eligible for promotion under the 3 percent disability quota, his department allegedly ignored him multiple times.

In the normal course, Singh should have been promoted to forest guard in 2003 and to forester in 2013, but instead had to wait until 2007 and 2021, respectively.

Giving reasons for the delay, the authorities contended that the field-level posts required physical fitness and visual capacity that Singh couldn’t meet. However, the government never officially exempted these positions from disability reservation as required by law.

“The measure of a compassionate state is not how it treats the strong, but how it uplifts those whom circumstance has made vulnerable,” Justice Moudgil wrote in his order.

The court found that the state had failed to fill the mandatory disability quota during the years Singh was eligible under this reservation.

This, the judge said, wasn’t just an administrative oversight, but it was a violation of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution, which guarantee equality and equal opportunity in public employment.

The HC ordered notional promotion to SIngh as forest guard from 2003 (19 years backdated), notional promotion to forester from 2013 (8 years backdated), full financial benefits with 6 percent annual interest from when they became due, and of seniority and pay fixation accordingly

The state was given four weeks to implement the order.

Disability isn’t a medical condition limiting an individual, the HC said, adding that it is a social construct created by institutions that are organised around able-bodied norms.

“Persons with disabilities often face exclusion not because of their physical or sensory impairments but because public institutions are organised in ways that presume able-bodied norms,” Justice Moudgil observed, citing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Singh, the HC said, was eventually able to perform both roles after receiving the positions, proving that the physical requirements could be accommodated.

(Edited by Tony Rai)