The Delhi High Court dismissed a writ petition filed by Ashwin Jawaharlal Mehta challenging the non-selection of his son, Bhagyadeep, a person with hearing impairment, in recruitment exercises conducted by IOCL (2014) and ONGC (2017). The court held that identification of a post as suitable for a particular disability under Section 32 of the 1995 PwD Act establishes the post's compatibility with the disability but does not dispense with the requirement that an individual candidate meet the prescribed standard of suitability for appointment. The distinction between reservation of a post and suitability for it was emphasised. The court relied on Rajeev Kumar Gupta and National Federation of the Blind to clarify that those judgments addressed the obligation to extend reservation to identified posts, not the standard of individual selection. Regarding Clause 22 of the DoPT OM (29 December 2005), the court held it permits relaxation of standards where sufficient PwD candidates are not available on the general standard, but does not require an employer to keep lowering an already relaxed benchmark merely because a reserved vacancy remains unfilled. IOCL had already reduced the composite benchmark from 45% to 40% for PwD candidates in 2014; the further reduction to 30% in 2018 was a one-time measure to clear backlog and could not be retroactively applied. Section 36 of the 1995 PwD Act expressly provides for carry-forward of unfilled reserved vacancies. In the ONGC recruitment, the candidate secured 5/15 interview marks against the PwD qualifying requirement of 6; his aggregate was also below the category cut-off. No provision for grace marks existed, and Section 34 of the 2016 RPwD Act provided for carry-forward, not post-selection alteration of marks. The court rejected broader challenges to interview/GD/GT stages and policy directions for special employment exchanges or medical authorities, noting they extended beyond the two recruitment exercises. The writ petition was dismissed.
