The Delhi High Court on Monday issued notice to Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on a plea challenging this year’s preliminary examination notice for direct recruitment to civil services on the ground that it neglects the minimum reservation to be provided to disabled persons.
The petition by Sambhavana, a registered society of the disabled for the disabled, claimed that the UPSC’s notice reserves only 24 vacancies for persons with disabilities out of a total 796 ‘expected approximate vacancies’.
This, the petition filed through advocates Krisha Mahajan and Ajay Kumar Chopra, said was below the four per cent mandatory reservation under section 34 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, 2016. The plea submitted that four per cent of 796 vacancies work out to is 32.
An HC Bench asked the Commission to give details about the method of computing vacancies in the All India Civil Services for which it carries out the recruitment process.
“The notice becomes a fraud on the Act since it gives four percent reservation of 796 expected approximate vacancies. To reserve something of that which does not legally exist is to legally give nothing,” the petition said.
The petition said the UPSC’s notice was “illegal as what is certain and clear for the disabled under the RPwD Act,2016 is made vague, ambiguous and uncertain by the device of expected approximate vacancies”.
The Civil Services (Preliminary) Exam 2020 is scheduled to be held on October 4, 2020 for 24 All India Services.
