Delhi HC slams govt for failure to fill PwD backlog vacancies, warns of contempt

Delhi High Court criticized the government for failing to fill PwD vacancies and may initiate contempt proceedings, citing a lack of compliance with orders.

The Delhi high court on Monday criticised the Delhi government for failing to comply with its directive issued nearly three years ago to fill the backlog of vacancies reserved for persons with disabilities (PwD) in government departments, and warned that it may initiate contempt proceedings.

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A bench of chief justice DK Upadhyay and justice Tushar Rao Gedela was hearing a petition filed by the non-profit organisation National Federation of the Blind, which sought directions to the government to comply with the high court’s March 2023 order.

In that order, the court had directed the government to conduct a special recruitment drive to fill vacancies reserved for persons with disabilities across various departments, noting that 1,351 posts under the direct recruitment quota for PwD candidates were vacant, including 356 posts for the visually impaired.

The court issued the reprimand after the government, instead of submitting an affidavit detailing vacancies for both direct recruitment and promotion where suitable candidates were unavailable, filed an affidavit that incorrectly combined figures for regular recruitment with those meant for special recruitment.

The bench said the government’s affidavit “was an attempt to confuse the court”.

“Your affidavit is an attempt to confuse the court. You are mixing the ordinary recruitment with a special recruitment drive, where the backlog vacancies were to be filled. More than 12 months you have taken to collect data. All this could have been done easily, and you took a year? We are not on officer A or officer B; we are on the general callousness,” the bench said to the government’s counsel.

Berating the government for its callousness, the court directed the National Federation of the Blind to file an affidavit within two weeks giving details of vacancies across all departments of the Delhi government, as well as its statutory bodies, and directed the government to respond to the same.

The matter will next be heard on February 3.