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SC orders PSEB to take back sacked worker
He had lost vision during service
S.S. Negi
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, January 7
The Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) has come in for severe admonishment from the Supreme Court for sacking an employee who got blind during service, saying its action was not only “insensitive and apathetic” but it grossly violated the Disabilities Protection Act provisions.

Lambasting the PSEB for forcing linesman Bhagwan Dass out of service after he was reported “totally blind” by doctors in January 1994, a Bench of Justices G.P. Mathur and Aftab Alam directed the board to take him back in service within six weeks and pay him entire salary from March 21, 1997, when he was terminated, with all incremental benefits.

While holding his termination as illegal, the Court said he would continue in service till his retirement date as per his service record. A fine of Rs 5,000 was also imposed on the Board for meeting the litigation cost of Dass, unnecessarily forced to go to the court.

This case highlighted “highly insensitive and apathetic attitude” harboured by some officials of the PSEB to one of its employees who had served the board since 1977 merely because he became visually disabled even when they were fully aware of his statutory rights.

Reminding the PSEB that the Punjab government had notified the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act in February 1996 and the board was bound to comply with its provisions to take care of employees who got disabled during service, the court said instead its officials denied him his lawful dues.

“It is manifest that notwithstanding the clear and definite legislative mandate some officers of the board took the view that it was not right to continue a blind man on its rolls and pay him monthly salary in return of no service… the action of the officers concerned of the board, to our mind, was deprecating,” Justice Aftab Alam, writing the for the Bench, said.

“The board officers failed to realise that the physically challenged too are equal citizens of the country and have as much share in its resources as any other citizen. The denial of their rights would not only be unjust and unfair to them and their families but would create larger and graver problems for society at large. What law permits to them is no charity or largess but their right as equal citizens,” the court observed.

The court took serious view of the board officers not explaining the correct position of the Act to Dass about his rights as he was not properly conversed with its provisions for being a Class IV employee, instead they issued him notices one after the other putting him under “enormous mental pressure”.

In desperation, he wrote a letter to the officials concerned that he wanted retirement and they took advantage of it to terminate his service, the court in its judgement recorded.