State dumps Kerala Administrative Tribunal order for disabled

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Revenue Department seems to have an axe to grind with persons with disabilities. The Department continues to employ delaying tactics even after the Kerala Administrative Tribunal order had directed it to create supernumerary posts to recruit persons with disabilities as deputy collectors by September 8. If the KAT wanted the creation of three supernumerary posts, it was because the Department had submitted that it did not have any vacancies. The Department did not bring to the notice of the KAT the fact that the Finance Department had already sanctioned six posts to the Revenue Department.

According to sources, finance minister Dr T M Thomas Isaac, too, had asked why the Revenue Department sought supernumerary posts when six equivalent posts had already been sanctioned. The proposal for the creation of six posts is now with the Chief Minister. But the proposal in the form of the file, recommending the creation of six posts, seems far away from becoming a reality. Mr Pinarayi Vijayan, a top source said, has sought more clarification on the creation of six posts from the Revenue Department. (The file had reached the Chief Minister's office on September 23.) An official order sanctioning the six new posts will be issued only after the Chief Minister, and then the cabinet, too, approves the proposal. "And then, the order has to be sent to the Public Service Commission so that it could vet the candidates on the rank list and issue advice memos," the source said. Openings were created in the Department when it was

The KAT, in its August 8 order, had that vacancies should be informed to the PSC to advice physically disabled candidates from the rank list that came out on January 17, 2014.  The state PSC has been following the rotation pattern of 33:66:99 despite repeated court orders that the pattern 1:34:64 should be followed. If the 1:34:64 pattern is followed, the first advice memo should go to the highest ranked handicapped person in the rank list when vacancies are reported in a department, unlike in the existing scenario where the highest ranked handicapped candidate gets a call only for the 33rd vacancy.