The court affirmed that higher education institutions must ensure a minimum 5% reservation for persons with disabilities, adhering to the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016.

JUDGMENT

D.N. Patel, Chief Justice (Oral)

The proceedings in the matter have been conducted through video conferencing.

1. This Public Interest Litigation has been preferred with the following prayers:

"a) Issue a writ in the nature of mandamus or any other appropriate writ directing the Respondent No. 3 to issue an appropriate admission policy and e-Prospectus modifying the impugned admission policy and e-Prospectus consistent with the RPWD Act, 2016 and reserve seats not less than 5% of the total number of seats for PWD candidates and compute the seats reserved for PWD candidates on the basis of the total number of seats without dividing them between different Schools/Centres.

b) Issue a writ in the nature of mandamus or any other appropriate writ directing Respondents No. 1 and 2 to issue instructions to all Government institutions of higher education and other higher education institutions receiving aid from the Government stating that the non-observance of the scheme of reservation of persons with disabilities would be considered as an act of disobedience and strict action would be taken against those institutions found to violate Section 32 of the Act; and

c) Pass any other/further order(s) as this Court may deem fit and proper in the interest of justice."

SUBMISSIONS OF THE PARTIES

2. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioner submitted that as per the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act, 2016" for the sake of brevity), minimum 5% reservation should be maintained for students with benchmark disabilities in Higher Education Institutions like respondent No.3 - Jawaharlal Nehru University.

3. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioner has submitted that the respondent No.3 - Jawaharlal Nehru University is not maintaining the aforesaid minimum percentage of reservation in the Admission Process of the students in various schools/centres.

4. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioner has taken this Court to Admission Policy of the respondent No.3 - University, especially Clauses 3, 4, 6 and 7 and it is submitted that Clause 7 provides for 5% horizontal reservation for persons with disabilities with minimum disability to the extent of 40%. Previously also, a similar writ petition, being W.P.(C) 3817/2018 (National Federation of Blind v. Union of India & Ors.), was instituted and it was observed by this Court that respondent No.3 - University cannot violate the mandate of the law.

5. It is further submitted by the learned counsel for the petitioner that in total disregard to Section 32 of the Act, 2016, the respondent No.3 - University is giving admission to the students in various branches. In some of the categories, the seats reserved for Persons with Disabilities (hereinafter referred to as "PWD students") are as low as 2.5% and the total number of seats reserved for PWD candidates comes to only 4.86%.

6. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioner has taken us to Annexure P-3 to the memo of this writ petition and has stated that for various programmes of studies, the reservation for PWD students is less than 5% which is in violation of Section 32 of the Act, 2016.

7. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioner has relied upon the aforementioned decision rendered by this Court in National Federation of Blind v. Union of India & Ors., 2018 SCC Online Del 12367 as well as the decision rendered by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Justice Sunanda Bhandare Foundation v. Union of India & Anr., (2017) 14 SCC 1.

8. We have heard the learned counsel appearing for the respondent No.3 - Jawaharlal Nehru University who has submitted that A detailed counter affidavit has been filed by the respondent No.3.

9. It is submitted by the learned counsel for the respondent No.3 - University that the respondent - Jawaharlal Nehru University is providing 5% reservation to PWD category students for the Academic Year 2020-21 and the same has been clearly mentioned in