Delhi HC offers interim relief to dyslexic student who was denied opportunity to apply for bank position
W.P.(C) 5030/2018 & CM No. 19388/2018
ROHAN GUPTA Vs STATE BANK OF INDIA & Ors
Rohan Gupta is a dyslexic disabled student who wanted to apply for the examination for the position of a probationary officer (PO) at the State Bank of India (SBI), but could not since the SBI PO advertisement did not reserve any seats for ‘benchmark disabilities’ under clause D of Section 34 of the Rights of Persons With Disabilities (RPWD) Act, 2016. Benchmark disabilities under clause (e) were also excluded from the advertisement.
The petition filed through the Socio-Legal Information Centre (SLIC) brought to the Delhi High Court’s attention the following points:
1. The Railway Recruitment Board had on February 28, 2018 released a corrigendum to detailed centralised employment notice to include categories (d) and (e) of the new RPDW Act, 2016, which had earlier been omitted out in the main advertisement.
2. The Staff Selection Committee had also in their combined graduate examination 2018 provided reservation for all the benchmark categories as per the new disability Law.
3. The Court was also informed of the academic excellence of the petitioner, who had been called by 9 IIIMs for MBA entrance interviews, and that the petitioner had appeared in CA intermediate examination and had qualified part I with scores of 95 out of 100 in class 12 in Math. He had also received a call letter for an interview at the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University (FMS, DU). He had a CAT score of 62.67 percentile.
4. The petition also noted the non-compliance of the office memorandum issued by the DoPT, which clearly states how exemption of reservation is to be done.
On May 31, 2018, the High Court ordered an interim relief to Rohan Gupta and directed the respondent Bank to issue him an offline call letter in the category of PwD for the online preliminary examination either on or before June 18, 2018, and to permit him to undertake the online preliminary examination that was held on July 1, 7 and 8, 2018.
The matter is now listed for July 23, 2018. We will update this case as it develops.