The court upheld the disqualification of candidates with colour blindness from conducting duties based on safety standards, maintaining that medical norms must align with public safety requirements.

ORDER

Per Sudhir Kumar, Member (A):

The applicant is before this Tribunal aggrieved by the respondents having denied to consider his candidature for appointment as Conductor with the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC, in short), in the Physically Handicapped category, despite his being physically handicapped, and colour blind, by holding that the discharge of duties of the Conductors with DTC also requires them to be free from colour blindness, even though in the past persons with visual disability of colour blindness were selected by the DTC as Conductors.

2. The facts of the case lie in a brief compass though the pleadings are very bulky. The Respondent No.2 DTC had issued a Notification dated 14.05.2010 for employment of 2000 personnel on short term contract basis, and invited list of registered candidates from Employment Exchanges etc., since the vacant posts were around 2000, and the Employment Exchanges had a list of around 15,000 candidates registered with them. However, the applicant had pointed out that in DTC’s communication to the Employment Exchange, the reservations for SC/ST/OBC and Physically disabled category candidates were not mentioned appropriately. The applicant has submitted that at the same time apparently Newspaper advertisement in Employment News had also been issued in that regard.

3. The applicant’s name was included in the list sent by the Employment Exchange as Annexure P-3, yet the applicant enquired in the Office of Respondent No.2, and he was then called for appearing before the Screening Committee for preliminary scrutiny of documents on 02.06.2010, for engagement of Conductors on short-term contract basis for a period of 89 days (Annexure P-3 colly). The applicant is, however, aggrieved that his name was not appropriately recommended by the Employment Exchange to the DTC for the proper category, even though he was having very old registration in the Employment Exchange since 2004, and had later on kept on renewing his candidature, and even when on-line registration was started in 2009, he had registered with the Employment Exchange, Pusa, New Delhi, in the Physically Handicapped category. He is aggrieved by the Employment Exchange having properly forwarded the candidature of Mr. Ranjit Kumar, and Mr. Sanjay Sharma, who did not have old registration numbers, and only had a new registration on the on-line system, which documents of those candidates he has annexed as Annexure P-3.

4. The applicant has submitted that he questioned the Respondent No.4 as to why the P.H. category persons registered with Employment Exchange earlier had been ignored by DTC, and why had a Physically Handicapped list under 3% quota not been prepared separately, and as to how many Physically Handicapped persons had been recruited by the DTC, and what was the selection criteria. He has alleged that Private Respondent No.R-4 abused him in fifty language, and assaulted him, because of which he gave a complaint to the Commissioner of Police against the concerned DTC Officers through Annexure P-4 dated 28.09.2010. In order to try to make out his case against the two other Private Respondents No.R-6 & R-7, the applicant has submitted that he had visited their office in July 2010, when he had been informed that the earlier system of registration in the Employment Exchange had been abolished, and on-line registration had since been introduced, replacing the earlier system, and when he enquired and sent