This petition was filed on behalf of Aravind Sajjanar, a person with scoliosis, challenging his non-selection for the post of Assistant Engineer(Civil) at the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited(KPTCL).
In 2016, the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited (KPTCL) invited applications to fill 8 vacant seats for the post of Assistant Engineer (Civil) at Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited, Bengaluru. The notification mentioned that out of the eight seats, one seat will be reserved for persons with locomotor disability (with one leg/one arm) and persons with hearing impairment.
The Petitioner suffers from scoliosis and has 60 percent locomotor disability. He is covered under Section 2(t) of the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995 and Section 2(r) of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. However, the application form for the post of Assistant Engineer (Civil) released by KPTCL provided the options of only “Locomotor Disability with OL/OA (One leg/ One arm)” and “Hearing impairment” for Persons with Disabilities. Hence, even after having locomotor disability, the Petitioner could not apply as a person with disability for the post because his locomotor disability is as a result of scoliosis and not the loss of one leg or one arm.
Even though the Petitioner scored the highest marks amongst the persons with disabilities in the online exam for selection of Assistant Engineers, he was not selected for the post. Rather, another candidate was selected for the post, who had a lower score than the Petitioner.
The Petitioner approached the Disability Commissioner to request KPTCL to consider the inability of the Petitioner to apply for the post as a person with a disability and select him for the post of Assistant Engineer (Civil) on account of his higher score.
In his petition before the Karnataka High Court, the Petitioner has contended that the exclusion of scoliosis from the category of locomotor disability for the purpose of reservations, without any intelligible justification, is arbitrary.
This case is currently pending.
This post was authored by Jagriti Pandey, a student from CNLU Patna, who interned at Centre for Law and Policy Research.