60%-Disabled Peon Gets Backdated Group C Promotion After Uttarakhand HC Cites Department’s Admission Of Reservation Error

The petitioner, who had a 60% physical disability, was appointed as a Group-D Peon in the Education Department in 1984.

In a 2010 promotion exercise from Group D to Group C, he was not considered for the 3% reservation for persons with disabilities.

He challenged that omission, and in 2018 the Additional Director of Education acknowledged that the Department had erred by failing to apply the Government Order dated 10 November 2010.

The petitioner was promoted in 2019, but only prospectively.

He then sought promotion and consequential benefits from the date his immediate juniors were promoted

The Court applied the Government Order dated 10 November 2010, which it treated as mandating reservation benefits for employees with disabilities in the promotion exercise

It also relied on the principle that an employee should not be deprived of a statutory benefit because of the administration’s acknowledged error, and that beneficial social-welfare legislation for persons with disabilities should be applied accordingly

The Court referred to the Division Bench judgment dated 29 November 2016 in WPSB No. 126 of 2015, in light of which the petitioner’s earlier writ petition had been disposed of

The petitioner’s failure to declare his disability in the application form did not defeat his claim: he was an existing employee, and his service record—held by the Department—recorded his disability.

Further, the Additional Director had already acknowledged the Department’s error in failing to apply the 2010 Government Order, so the State could not rely on a contrary position to deny the benefit

The non-joinder objection also failed because the Director was a respondent and the Additional Director was subordinate to the Director; the Court considered dismissal on that ground hypertechnical

Since the petitioner’s statutory right to consideration under the reservation had been wrongly denied while his juniors were promoted, the Department’s error could not deprive him of the consequential notional benefits

It further directed the respondents to revise his Group-C seniority and provide notional benefits and retrospective pay fixation within two months after production of a certified copy of the order.

No order as to costs was made