The Delhi High Court has condemned the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) for its exclusion of individuals who are deaf and hard of hearing from the reservation process for teaching positions, reports IANS.
A division bench consisting of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Narula expressed dissatisfaction with KVS for not adhering to relevant statutes and government notifications in their recruitment advertisement from December 2022.
This bench was hearing a petition filed by the National Association of the Deaf (NAD), which challenged the said advertisement. Additionally, the court took up a suo motu public interest litigation on the issue.
Justice Sharma voiced his disappointment, stating, "I don't understand why we are hostile towards these people. I never thought Kendriya Vidyalayas would be doing all this. I feel sorry for the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan."
His personal connection to the institution as an alumnus of Kendriya Vidyalaya made the issue even more meaningful to him.
Upon learning that recruitment had already taken place based on the advertisement, the court indicated its intention to instruct KVS to rectify the backlog of vacancies for persons with disabilities, pointing out the need for adherence to government regulations.
KVS argued that an internal committee had advised against hiring a specific category of persons with disabilities. Nevertheless, the court asserted that as the Central government had not granted KVS an exemption from applying the disability quota, they were not entitled to disregard it.
The court also stressed the significance of KVS complying with the provisions of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, 2016, and the government's notification on the matter.
