New Delhi: In a significant win for disability rights, the Delhi High Court Wednesday dismissed a challenge to a September 2025 Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order, directing the Centre to provide 0.5 percent reservation for people with learning disabilities in the civil services examination.
A bench of Justices Anil Kshetarpal and Amit Mahajan rejected the central government’s appeal, setting an eight-week deadline to comply with CAT’s direction, which has not been implemented for over four months.
The case had stemmed from a plea by a woman named Molshree Aggarwal before the CAT’s Principal Bench in New Delhi. Saying she had been diagnosed with a specific learning disability, she had challenged the exclusion of the (d) category of disabilities under Section 34(1) of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016—which covers autism, learning disabilities and mental illnesses—from reservations in the civil services exam over the last two years.
She sought 0.5 percent reservation for her category, along with the identification of suitable posts under Section 33 of the Act, which mandates the identification, review and update of lists of posts in government establishments suitable for people with disabilities, along with provisional reservation for the civil service exam conducted in 2024 and 2025.
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What the CAT order said
On 29 September last year, the tribunal had held that the exclusion of people with learning disabilities was arbitrary and violated the 2016 Act, as well as Articles 14, 16 and 21 of the Constitution, which guarantee the fundamental right to equality, the right to equality of opportunity in matters of public employment and the right to life.
The bench had also directed 0.5 percent horizontal reservation for the category within three months after identifying relevant data. Horizontal reservation refers to the equal opportunity provided to other categories of beneficiaries, such as women, the transgender community, and persons with disabilities, cutting through the vertical categories. It comes under Article 15(3) of the Indian Constitution.
It had also ordered provisional reservation and accommodation for candidates in the 2024-25 exam, while asking the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to file its implementation reports.
The Centre argued that the CAT order was legally untenable as it exceeded the tribunal’s jurisdiction under the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985. It added that the tribunal had ventured into the realm of policy decisions, otherwise reserved for the executive.
Why UPSC challenged CAT directive
The UPSC said that the CAT had ignored its compliance with the RPwD Act, 2016 through reasoned exclusion policies based on an expert committee’s findings and office memoranda.
It argued that the CAT order ignored a slew of legal precedents on judicial restraint in policy matters and threatened the integrity of ongoing and future civil service exam processes. It added that the exclusion of category (d) was formalised in November 2023 and 2024.
After looking at the objective challenges in assessing category (d) disabilities, inconsistencies in medical certifications, and functional incompatibility with civil services’ demands, such as quick decision-making, interpersonal skills, leadership, and high-stakes public administration, the UPSC said it decided to exclude these disabilities from reservation in the civil services exam.
The CAT order, according to UPSC’s plea, also impinged upon ongoing executive reviews concerning disability categorisation. By directing mid-cycle, retrospective reservations and seat reallocations, it risks serious administrative disruption.
The plea said the directions prejudiced thousands of candidates selected on merit and undermined the larger public interest in a uniform, merit-based recruitment framework vital to effective national governance.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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