Lawyer Anjali Arora doesn’t need a job with the National Thermal Power Corporation but for the past one year she has been fighting a court case against the corporation’s eligibility rule for recruiting the disabled.
This month the Delhi High Court ruled in visually-impaired Anjali’s favour and asked the corporation to make a fresh selection for the post of assistant law officers.
Anjali wants to fight for the rights of the disabled and the ruling has encouraged her. ‘‘I believe that a lawyer is a social reformer of a different kind,’’ she said.
When Anjali saw NTPC’s recruitment notice for the post in Employment News last year, she thought physically-challenged candidates were being given a bad deal.
‘‘For Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) candidates the criteria was pass marks in the law exam, but the physically challenged were required to have a minimum of 60 per cent score. The disabled had been put in the general category,’’ she said.
‘‘This rule was against the Centre’s 1995-memorandum which stipulates that the physically challenged are entitled to the same concession as other reserved categories.’’
Anjali did her LLb from Delhi University in 1998 and got 58.73 per cent marks. She fell short of the NTPC’s recruitment rule by just over 1 per cent.
‘‘When deciding about eligibility, organisations do consider the fact that we do not get the same resources as other students,’’ she said.
‘‘To write exams, visually-challenged students have to take the help of a scribe whom they cannot monitor.’’
Anjali’s petition said NTPC’s norm violated her constitutional rights and the Persons With Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995.
Anjali, who also describes herself as a disabled rights activist, said: ‘‘If socially and educationally-backward people are entitled for concessions, we too deserve them.’’
NTPC assured the court that from now it will give the same concession to physically-challenged candidates and review its decision after every five years. Justice Vijender Jain directed the corporation to issue fresh advertisements stating these decisions.
Speaking up for physically-challenged people, Anjali said: ‘‘More than 60 per cent of the visually challenged in Delhi are computer literate. What employers do not realise is that given the opportunity we are equally capable as our other colleagues.’’
Giving her own example, Anjali said a speech-enabled software is the only thing extra she needs at her office.
Anjali, who is now employed with another public sector organisation, does not need the NTPC job any longer. ‘‘Nevertheless, it was important for me to take a stand against discrimination,’’ she said.
Her job restricts her to desk work but Anjali, who is registered with the Delhi State Bar Council, ‘‘would prefer practising in courts any day. It is more exciting.’’ But for her to do that, Anjali believes courts need to become more sensitive to the needs of the physically challenged.