Madras HC dismisses plea of man to join judicial service with 70% blindness

CHENNAI: Madras High Court has refused to allow a person with 70 per cent blindness to be inducted in subordinate judicial service, maintaining that he suffered partial blindness beyond the prescribed limits, though he had cleared the written examination.

Stating that he suffered from 70 per cent blindness, whereas maximum permissible visual disability could not exceed 40 per cent to 50 per cent for civil judges, Justice V Ramasubramanian on Friday dismissed the petition by Surendra Mohan, against his non-inclusion in the selection list.

"Taking into account the nature of duties to be performed by a civil judge, government in consultation with the High Court, had proposed to restrict the applicability of the benefit of reservation only to those whose disability ranges from 40 per cent to 50 per cent," the Judge said.

"The proposed amendment, while not depriving the benefit of reservation to those who come within the definition of the expression 'person with disability', restricts it to those whose percentage of disability is 50 per cent less. This cannot be termed as nullifying the effect of the statute," the judge observed.

The judge said that the amendment to the extent of disability came into existence due to difficulties experienced by the High Court itself.

In 2010, a fully blind candidate was selected and appointed, the judge said, adding, "after the administration experienced difficulties, the selected candidate had to be posted as Assistant Editor of Tamil Law Journal.

Therefore, the proposed amendment seeks to fix minimum standards of vision and hearing for appointment to the posts of district judge (entry level) and civil judge by direct recruitment at 50 per cent and above.

To achieve this, the existing Rule 10(2) was sought to be substituted with a new rule defining partial blindness as something between 40 per cent to 50 per cent.

Surendra Mohan, a partially blind person with percentage of disability at 70 per cent, had applied for civil judge post and secured the minimum marks prescribed for a pass in the written examination. Since he was not included in the list of candidates short-listed for viva vice, he moved the High Court.

Additional Advocate General P H Arvindh Pandian said a government order on August 8, 2014 had made it clear that the benefit of reservation for physically challenged is available only to those blind and deaf candidates whose percentage of disability is 40 to 50 per cent.