The Supreme Court on December 17th, in a significant verdict, said all possible alternatives must be considered before dismissing from service a person claiming disability in disciplinary proceedings as providing reasonable accommodation to such employees is “sacrosanct”.
The top court said the “one-size fits all approach” can never be used to determine disability which is an “individual conception” and not a universal concept. A bench of Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice Surya Kant, and Justice Vikram Nath made compelling disabled-friendly observations, setting aside the 2018 judgment of a division bench of the Gauhati High Court.
The high court revived investigation proceedings against Assistant Commandant Ravinder Kumar Dhariwal for the CRPF who had submitted the documents in the disciplinary proceedings on the grounds of mental disability.
The bench said, “The disciplinary action against the appellant in connection with the first inquiry stands quashed”.
The appellant is also entitled to protection under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016 if the person is found unfit for his present employment.
The verdict said, “Since disability is a social construct dependent on the interplay between mental impairment with barriers such as social, economic and historical among other factors, the one-size-fits-all approach can never be used to identify the disability of a person. Disability is not universal but is an individualistic conception based on the impairment that a person has along with the barriers that they face. Since the barriers that every person faces are personal to their surroundings, interpersonal and structural, general observations on how a person ought to have behaved cannot be made”.
