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ORIGINAL JURISDICTION: Writ Petition (C) No. 655 of 1991. (Under Article 32 of the Constitution of India). Santosh Kumar Rungta and R.P. Gupta for the Petitioner. V.C. Mahajan, Ms. Niranjana Singh and Ms. A. Subhashini for the Respondents.

The Judgment of he Court was delivered by KULDIP SINGH, J. National Federation of Blind a representative body of visually handicapped persons in India has filed this petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India seeking a writ in the nature of mandamus directing the Union of India and the Union Public Service Commission to permit the blind candidates to compete for the Indian Administrative Service and the Allied Services and further to provide them the facility of writing and civil services examination either in Braille-script or with the help of a Scribe. Braille is a system of writing for the blind in which the characters consist of raised dots to be read by the fingers. Further relief sought in the petition is that Group A and B posts in Government and public sector undertakings which have already been identified for the visually handicapped persons be offered to them on preferential basis.

The Committee devoted special attention to the visually handicapped. Para 8 of the report which relates to the blind is as under:-

"However, in the case of the blind the position is somewhat different. Seeing, reading, writing and movement are essential ingredients of most Government jobs. Therefore, a similar approach in respect of blind persons may be difficult. It would not be possible to generalise that blind person can do most jobs as we have found for those with locomotor and hearing disabilities. The Committee found that in higher posts is Government the help of a personal assistant or a stenographer is generally available. But this facility is. not available even in higher posts in public sector undertakings. Wherever this facility is available a blind person may not find it difficult, in certain groups of posts, to handle the job. It is also possible, in relation to other posts where stenographic assistance is not available that some other facilities can be provided to a blind employee. To compensate 'reading deficiency, readers' allowance can be provided to blind employees to enable them to engage a reader. Similarly, to compensate for "writing deficiency", the blind employee should be required to know typing. Adequate knowledge of typing should be prescribed as an essential qualification for blind employees for public employment. Where mobility may also be one of the main ingredients of a job it is difficult to compensate blind employees for this "deficiency. The Committee would also emphasise that the blind employee should be fully responsible for the duties assigned to them, despite the provision of reader's allowance and typing skill. The Committee would also suggest that the maximum reader's allowance should be limited to Rs.200 p.m. to blind employees recruited to Group A and B post.' The Committee has identified about 416 categories of Group A and B posts which are suitable for the handicapped. The Committee has further specified that the visually handicapped (blind and partially blind) are suitable for appointment to the following categories of Group A and B post:-

The observations of the Union Public Service Commission as projected by Mr. V.K. Cherian in his above quoted affidavit do not seem to be correct. After going through the list of the posts identified as suitable for visually handicapped (blind and partially-blind) it is obvious that there are number of posts which are required to be filled through the civil services examination and other competitive examinations conducted by the Commission. Group A and B posts in the category of Administrative Officers (Secretarial-Senior) and Administrative Officer (Secretarial-Junior) are necessarily to be filled as a result of civil services examination by the Union Public Service Commission. If some of the posts in the Indian Administrative Service and other Allied Services, as identified by the Committee, can be filled from amongst the visually handicapped persons then we see no reason why they should not be permitted to sit and write the civil services examination. We make it clear that once recruited to the lowest level of the service the visually handicapped persons shall not be entitled to claim promotion to the higher posts in the service irrespective of the physical requirements of the jobs. If in the hierarchy of promotional-posts it is found by the Government that a particular post is not suitable for the visually handicapped person he shall not have any right to claim the said post.

In the light of the above discussion we partly allow the writ petition and direct the Government of India and the Union Public Service Commission to permit the visually handicapped (blind and partially-blind) eligible candidates to compete and write the civil services examination which is ordinarily held yearly by the Union Public Service Commission.

We further direct that they shall be permitted to write the examination in Braille-script or with the help of a Scribe. There shall be no orders as to costs.