The Delhi High Court has sought a response of the Centre and Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on a plea by a disabled woman, who cleared all rounds of the civil services exam of 2012-13, seeking allocation of IAS or Indian Foreign Service (IFS) to her under physically handicapped category.
A bench, headed by Justice S Ravindra Bhat, also directed UPSC to keep one position vacant in the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) which will be filled up subject to the outcome of the petition.
The court issued a notice to the Ministry of Personnel and Public Grievances as well as UPSC, seeking their replies in two weeks.
It also called for all the records pertaining to criteria for allocating services to selected candidates.
The order was passed on the plea of Shweta Bansal who has, in her plea, also questioned "the manner in which reservation is being effected by the Union of India, UPSC and other government and statutory authorities" in connection with the civil services.
She has alleged UPSC "failed to allocate any service to the petitioner, whereas other disabled candidates who are ranked below her have been allocated services in preference to her on completely unjustified and ex-facie untenable basis".
Bansal, who has attained a rank of 769 in the civil services exam of 2012, has contended she was recommended for service allocation by UPSC but she was not allocated a service of her choice.
She has alleged the government's manner of allocation of service is "opaque", does not provide sufficient information to aspirants like her to make an informed choice and the whole exercise is largely left to chance with merit taking a backseat.
