News

Volume 5 Issue 4 - February 15, 2007

Disabled Civil Services candidate gets relief; C.I.C. slaps fine on Government

D.N.I.S. News Network – The Central Information Commission (C.I.C.) ordered compensation for a disabled Civil Services candidate who had been deprived of a job despite having cleared the exams. Further, it has slapped a fine of Rs. 25,000 on the Government. The penalty was imposed in a stringent order on a Public Information Officer at the Department of Personnel and Training (D.o.P.T.) for his failure to respond to Kumar Avikal Manu’s request under the Right to Information (R.T.I.) Act asking for the status of his appointment.

The Commission also speculated that the Government’s “inhuman” attitude might have something to do with the R.T.I. request that Manu had filed. He had cleared the Civil Service exams in 2004, but was not appointed, the reasons for it being unknown. Manu moved under the R.T.I. law, but did not receive any response. The Commission’s order noted that days after his case came up for hearing at the C.I.C. in December 2006, he was told that he could not be appointed “for want of vacancy in any Government department”.

Information Commissioner, Prof. M.M. Ansari, said, “The D.o.P.T. action has resulted in the deprivation of right to work/ job of a physically disabled person. This action is inhuman, besides being arbitrary and illogical.”

Disabled Rights Group Convenor Javed Abidi hoped that “the Commission’s order shames D.o.P.T. into taking some remedial action, for Manu and disabled people as a whole. I find it unacceptable that a disabled person qualifies the Civil Service and is then not given placement on one excuse or the other.”