New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has sought a response of the Centre and Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on a plea by a disabled woman, who cleared all rounds of the civil services exam of 2012-13, seeking allocation of IAS or Indian Foreign Service (IFS) to her under physically handicapped category.
A bench, headed by Justice S Ravindra Bhat, also directed UPSC to keep one position vacant in the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) which will be filled up subject to the outcome of the petition.
The court issued a notice to the Ministry of Personnel and Public Grievances as well as UPSC, seeking their replies in two weeks.
It also called for all the records pertaining to criteria for allocating services to selected candidates.
The order was passed on the plea of Shweta Bansal who has, in her plea, also questioned "the manner in which reservation is being effected by the Union of India, UPSC and other government and statutory authorities" in connection with the civil services.
She has alleged UPSC "failed to allocate any service to the petitioner, whereas other disabled candidates who are ranked below her have been allocated services in preference to her on completely unjustified and ex-facie untenable basis".
Bansal, who has attained a rank of 769 in the civil services exam of 2012, has contended she was recommended for service allocation by UPSC but she was not allocated a service of her choice.
She has alleged the government's manner of allocation of service is "opaque", does not provide sufficient information to aspirants like her to make an informed choice and the whole exercise is largely left to chance with merit taking a backseat.The government's medical board had certified her as both legs (BL) handicapped with a disability of 63 percent as per which she was not considered for IAS, central government's Standing Counsel Anil Soni and advocate Naginder Benipal had submitted before the court.
They also refuted Bansal's contention that only 178 of the 180 vacancies in IAS were filled as per results of CSE 2012 and two vacancies still remain.
However, the woman has submitted, in her plea, that a medical certificate which shows she is having disability only in one leg due to a childhood accident.
The lady in her plea has also sought setting aside of a recent order of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) to the extent that it did not direct that she be allocated a service of her choice.
CAT had passed the order on her plea challenging the government's decision regarding allocation of services to the selected candidates as she had not been allocated any service despite having achieved a rank of 769 in the CSE 2012.
The Tribunal, while holding the system to be faulty and directing the government to rectify the same, had directed that the applicant may be allowed to choose from any of the services in which unfilled vacancies exist in respect of CSE-2012 for the OL (one-leg disabled) category.
