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Reserve Bank of India & Ors vs A.K. Nair & Ors (2023 INSC 613)

Civil Appeal · 2023 INSC 613Decided 4 Jul 2023
Civil Appeal Nos. 529-530 of 2023
Dipankar Datta

Background

Mr. A.K. Nair, an RBI employee with 50% orthopedic disability (post-polio paralysis), sat a 2004 promotion exam for Assistant Manager and scored 92 out of a required 95 marks. He asked the RBI to relax the cutoff for him the same way it does for SC/ST candidates, arguing the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995 entitled him to reservation in promotion even for this higher "Group A" post. The RBI refused, saying no reservation applied to promotions into Group A/B posts. Nair won a partial victory in the Bombay High Court, which held that reservation policy should apply to Group A promotions from 2005 onward, but the High Court did not go so far as to order his actual promotion or resolve the marks shortfall. Both RBI and the Union of India appealed to the Supreme Court; years later, subsequent Supreme Court rulings (including Rajeev Kumar Gupta) had by then clarified that such reservation in promotion for the disabled was indeed legally required.

Decision Breakdown

The Court held that its later interpretation of the disability law relates back in time, so Nair did have a valid legal right all along to claim reservation in promotion to Group A posts, and it was "indefensible" for the RBI, as a "model employer," to have refused to condone his shortfall of marks the way it condones shortfalls for SC/ST candidates. Given that the RBI had itself delayed matters by appealing rather than complying with the High Court's order years earlier, and invoking its special "complete justice" power under Article 142 of the Constitution, the Court directed the RBI to grant Nair a notional promotion effective from 2006 (when he first went to the High Court) and an actual promotion effective 2014, along with back pay and correspondingly higher retirement benefits, to be worked out within a few months.

Lesson Learnt

Employers must apply disability-reservation benefits in promotions the same way they apply reservations for other protected categories, and when a court's later ruling clarifies that a right existed all along, that clarification can be applied to correct injustice suffered years earlier, especially where the employer's own delay in complying contributed to the prolonged litigation.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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