Law Must Bend Toward Inclusion Of Specially-Abled Citizen: Punjab & Haryana High Court Grants Relief To Visually Impaired Forest Department Employee

The High Court was considering a Petition filed by the petitioner seeking directions for promotion to the posts of Forest Guard w.e.f. 2003 and as Forester w.e.f. 2013 under the 3% Physically Handicapped quota, with all consequential benefits.

The Single Bench of Justice Sandeep Moudgil held, “The retrospective application of these instructions removes any doubt that the disability quota ought to have been operated in the petitioner’s case when the promotional vacancies arose in 2003 and 2013, and that the petitioner, being the only employee with visual disability in the relevant cadre, was entitled to consideration against those reserved vacancies.”

“This court is sanguine of the fact that the measure of a compassionate State is not how it treats the strong, but how it uplifts those whom circumstance has made vulnerable. When statutory rights meant to level an uneven field are allowed to wither by bureaucratic indifference, the Court must intervene not out of sentiment, but out of respect to the Constitution’s ethic. Equality is not a mechanical formula but a human commitment. Therefore the law must bend toward inclusion, lest the specially-abled citizen be left standing outside the doors of opportunity to which the Constitution has already given him a key”, it added.

Advocate Abhijeet Singh Rawaley represented the petitioners while Addl. AG Deepak Balyan represented the Respondent.

Factual Background

The petitioner was an employee of the Forest Department, Government of Haryana, and was visually impaired. He was appointed as a Mali in 1998, and as per the applicable service rules, the next promotional post in the cadre was Forest Guard. The petitioner became eligible for consideration for that post in the year 2003. He was promoted as a Forest Guard in 2007 after the Government granted relaxation of certain conditions prescribed under the Rules. The next promotional post in the hierarchy was Forester and under the Haryana State Forest Employees Group ‘C’ Service Rules, the post requires ten years’ experience as a Forest Guard and completion of Forest Guard training. The petitioner became eligible for consideration in the year 2013. On November 23, 2021, the Government granted relaxation from the mandatory training requirement, and he was promoted as Forester with effect from the same date.

The State Government issued instructions in 2023 providing that reservation in promotion for persons with disabilities would apply for the period from January 1, 1996, to April 18, 2017. The Court had earlier permitted the petitioner to submit a representation before the competent authority regarding his claim for promotion from the dates of eligibility. The representation was considered by the Additional Chief Secretary, who declined to grant retrospective effect to the petitioner’s promotions. The order records that the relaxations granted by the Government operated prospectively and that field-level posts in the Forest Department require physical fitness and visual capacity. The Petition challenged the order and sought directions for the grant of promotion to the posts of Forest Guard from 2003 and Forester from 2013, together with consequential benefits.

Reasoning

The Bench discussed the discuss the vision of the framers of laws for the protection of persons with disability and the spirit of the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 and Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. “The disability rights regime in India must be understood not merely as a set of statutory prescriptions but as an expression of the constitutional promise of equality, dignity, and full participation. Long before the recognition of disability as a dimension of substantive equality in constitutional jurisprudence, Parliament enacted the 1995 Act. The 1995 Act marked a decisive shift from a charity-based model to one centered on equal opportunity”, it stated.

Explaining that the 1995 Act was later replaced by the 2016 Act, which represents a further evolution in legislative design, the Bench mentioned that the disability rights framework, therefore, seeks to correct patterns of exclusion by obligating the State to create conditions that allow specially abled persons to thrive.

On a perusal of the facts of the case, the Bench noted that the petitioner became eligible for promotion to the post of Forest Guard in 2003 and to the post of Forester in 2013. He was the sole visually impaired employee in the feeder cadres during the relevant period. As per the Bench, sections 32 and 33 of the 1995 Act impose mandatory obligations on the State for identification of suitable posts and reservation of at least 3% of vacancies (including 1% for blindness or low vision). The Bench further noticed that the instructions issued by the State of Haryana expressly made a horizontal reservation in promotions applicable from January 1, 1996 to April 18, 2017. Consequently, during both periods of eligibility, the reservation for persons with visual disability was operative, it noted.

The Bench thus held that the petitioner was entitled to promotion against the 3% reservation quota for physically handicapped, and should be accorded notional promotion to the post of Forest Guard from 2003 and Forester from 2013. The Bench also clarified that promotions should carry consequential benefits, including fixation of pay and seniority. “All financial benefits which shall accrue to the petitioner will carry interest at 6% per anum from the date it became due till the date of it’s realization”, it ordered while allowing the writ petition.

Cause Title: Bhim Singh v. State of Haryana (Neutral Citation: 2025:PHHC:166939)

Click here to read/download Order