Meritorious PwD deserve general slot, not quota: SC

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Friday expressed concern over implementation of reservation for persons with disabilities as those PwD who perform on a par with general candidates and make it to the merit list are not treated as unreserved, like it is done in case of SC/ST reservation, and asked the Centre to rectify it.A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said that upward movement in reservation, which is allowed for SCs/STs and means that when reserved category students make the merit list, they be treated as unreserved, should be followed for people with disability quota also."The direct consequence of not providing upward movement to meritorious candidate(s) applying under the category of persons with disabilities would be that even when a candidate with disability scores higher than the cut-off for unreserved category, such a candidate would invariably occupy the reserved seat, thereby denying the opportunity to a lower scoring candidate with disability to make a claim on the seat/post.

In our view, this defeats the very purpose of reservation," Justice Mehta who penned the judgement for the bench, said.The court said a considerable segment of persons with disabilities remains historically and structurally deprived of opportunities, trapped behind layers of social, economic, and institutional barriers, and it is they who must be placed at the centre of the constitutional promise. "The aim of state-driven welfare measures is not simply to ensure formal equality, but to dismantle barriers so that the most vulnerable and genuinely disadvantaged can fully access the support intended for them.

""We consider it appropriate to require the Union of India to explain whether appropriate measures have been taken to provide the upward movement of meritorious candidates applying against the post/s reserved for persons with disabilities, in case such candidate secures more than the cut-off for the unreserved category. The same principle must also be applied to promotions. Such consideration must be guided by the overarching aim that the true and substantive benefit of reservations reaches those most in need, ensuring that no person with disability is ignored from his rightful claim to the post, merely due to the compounded barriers of poverty, stigma, and lack of access," the court said.