Is It Sufficient To Apply PwD Reservation Only In Open Category? Supreme Court To Consider
The Supreme Court will hear a special leave petition in November, where the issue arises as to whether 4% reservation provided for physically challenged persons is a compartmentalised horizontal reservation to the different categories, such as open competition/Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe/Economically Weaker Section etc or an overall horizontal reservation for the posts of Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services (Judicial) Examination.
A bench comprising Justice PS Narasimha and AS Chandurkar will hear the matter.
The SLP is filed against an order passed by the Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court, wherein it held that, as per the Jammu & Kashmir Reservation Rules, 2005, 4% reservation is provided to the physically challenged persons in the horizontal category. By horizontal, it means that the reservation would cut across the vertical reservation, and the persons selected against the physically challenged quota would be placed in the appropriate category. It held, therefore, that it is an overall horizontal reservation.
In this case, the candidate had first filed a writ petition before the High Court claiming that the Jammu & Kashmir Public Service Commission selected two candidates by granting the benefit of reservation meant for physically challenged persons to the candidates under open merit only and not to other categories. It was argued that had the commission applied horizontal reservation separately to the categories under vertical reservation, they would not be selected and that the petitioner would have been selected.
Out of 69 seats for the post of Civil Judge(Junior Division). 3 were for physically challenged persons under a horizontal reservation basis.
The Supreme Court, while issuing notice to the JK PSC and the HC of J&K, noted the petitioner's submission regarding the questions of law as follows :
1. The short controversy in the matter is as to whether while implementing the mandate of Section 34 of the Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, the appropriate Government is required to consider eligible persons with disabilities from each of the social reservation categories/vertical reservation classes (like SC, ST, OBC, Open Category, reserved backward area (RBA), or whether it would suffice to fill up the required 4% reservation for persons with disabilities (PWDs) from a single category which in the present case is the open category?
2. The necessary consequential and ancillary issue is as to whether when an eligible person with disability (special reservation candidate) is available for recruitment who also belongs to one of the social categories (viz. Reserved backward area) should preference not be given to him suffering a double disadvantage over other eligible candidates who do not belong to the social reservation category.
Case Details: DAWOOD AHMAD BHAT v. JAMMU AND KASHMIR PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION & ORS|SPECIAL LEAVE PETITION (CIVIL) Diary No(s). 9330/2025
Appearances: For Petitioner(s) : Mr. Zoheb Hossain, Adv. Mr. Vikhyat Oberoi, Adv. Mr. Ravi Sharma, Adv. Ms. Nishita Gupta, Adv. Mr. Shivam Prakash, Adv. Mr. Mrinal Kumar Sharma, AOR