The Bombay High Court has refused to grant relief to a disabled civil services aspirant observing that the Scheduled Caste / Scheduled Tribe was a distinct class identified by the Constitution and hence the reservation criteria prescribed for them cannot be termed as arbitrary.
City-based Dharmendra Kumar, 38, who has unsuccessfully attempted the civil services examinations nine times, challenged the Civil Services Examination Rules which permitted SC / ST category candidates unlimited attempts. As per the Rules, a candidate from the Other Backward Class (OBC) category and Persons with Benchmark Disability (PwBD) are allowed only nine attempts at the examination, whereas a candidate from the general open category is allowed only six attempts. He contended that the Rules were discriminatory in nature.
A bench of Justices Bharati Dangre and Ashwin Bhobe, on February 4, dismissed the petition noting that it failed to raise any valid ground of challenge. The court said that the SC / ST was a distinct class from the OBC and hence different criteria are prescribed for them and such criteria cannot be termed as arbitrary.
SC / ST itself is a class which has a definite connotation in the Constitution and is distinct from the OBC which has received recognition under the Constitution, the court said. “By no stretch of imagination, can a person belonging to the OBC category compare himself with a person from the SC/ST category, as the two classes stand apart in the Constitution for the purposes of reservation,” it underlined.
The judges said that persons with benchmark disability was a distinct class by itself though it may include candidates belonging to the general category, SC / ST and OBC but since it is a horizontal reservation it would cut across the vertical reservation. “Therefore, in a person with a benchmark disability category, if a candidate belongs to the SC/ST category then he or she shall stand on a different footing than a candidate belonging to any other category,” it added.
Kumar contended that persons with benchmark disability should be treated as a separate class, hence, irrespective of whether he or she is SC / ST or OBC they must be entitled to equal number of attempts as a candidate from the SC/ST class. The bench concluded that such an argument cannot be accepted.
