BANGALORE: In what could turn out to be a major embarrassment to the Government, the Court of the Commissioner for Disabilities has directed it to fully comply with the provisions of the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Right and Full Participation) Act of 1995 providing for reservation of posts to people with disabilities.

The court also directed the State and its agencies to "bestow its serious thoughts on the issue" and redo the reservation norms to ensure that the requisite percentage of posts for the disabled is provided.

Allowing applications by several people with disabilities, Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities L. Krishna Murthy instructed the Commissioner for Public Instruction to take action to reserve five per cent of the vacancies for 2006-07 to the posts of assistant masters, grade 2, in secondary schools for people with disabilities.

The Commissioner of Public Instruction was also asked to take up a one-time special recruitment drive to ensure that five per cent of the posts are filled up with people with disabilities.

The State and the authorities were directed to keep a register showing the points of reservation to the horizontal roaster (system) up to which the appointments are made in each cadre and category, blocks, taluks and districts pertaining to persons with disabilities.

The court gave this ruling, which can now be appealed against in the High Court, on applications by G.K. Lakshminarayana of Korategere, Tumkur district, Gundappa of Aland in Gulbarga district, Shyam Sail and G.P. Ravindran of Bangalore and Ishwar Naik of Bhatkal, Uttara Kannada. The applicants had filed complaints under Section 62 of the Persons with Disabilities Act before the court seeking implementation of the Act in providing for reservation to the post of secondary school assistant masters, grade 2, in all the four divisions of Bangalore, Mysore, Belgaum and Gulbarga.

The complainants said on September 25, 2006, the department had invited applications for the posts of 5,984 secondary schools teachers. However, the requisite number of posts for the disabled could not be reserved.

The State contended that it is difficult to maintain the requisite percentage of reservation as both the vertical and horizontal methods of reservation were being followed.

Allowing the applications, the court took into account the observation of people with disabilities that the reservation for the physically challenged is only eyewash and that it does not serve the purpose for which the act was brought into force.

The court felt that the respondents should take steps to abide by the statutory prescriptions and the mandatory rules.

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