G VIJAYA KUMAR Vs. STATE BANK OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is an applicant for the post of Probationary Officer with the respondent Bank. The petitioner is a Scheduled Caste candidate and his application was made for one of the reserved posts. He appeared for the written test on 21st December, 1980 and was declared successful in that written test. He appeared before the Bank's Central Recruitment Board. In the oral interview, he was successful. Accordingly he was intimated by Bank's proceedings dated 3-10-1980 that he had been selected for appointment as Probationary Officer in the State Bank of India. He was called upon to appear for medical check-up and in the medical check up the petitioner was declared to be colour-blind. On the basis of that medical finding, the petitioner was found not suitable for appointment as Probationary Officer. Accordingly the petitioner was rejected for appointment for the Probationary Officer of the Bank. The writ petition has been filed by the petitioner impugning the validity of that order rejecting the petitioner for appointment as a Probationary Officer.

(2.) It was not denied that on the day when the test was conducted the Bank was treating colour-blindness as a total disqualification, although about the same time the Union Public Service Commission and the State Public Service Commission have not chosen to impose any such total ban on the colour-blind candidates for appointment to Senior Grade posts. It is to note that the Union Public Service Commission has never considered colour blindness as a legitimate bar for recruitment to I.A.S., I.P.S., I.F.S., I.A. and A.S., Indian Customs Services, Indian Civil Accounts Service, Indian Railway Accounts Service, Indian Railway Personnel Service, Indian Defence Accounts Service, Indian Income-tax Service, Indian Postal Service, Military Lands and Cantonment Service and other Central Services Group A and B. Similarly, the State Public Service Commission also has not considered colour-blindness as a legitimate bar for recruitment to Group-I Services which include posts in Commercial Tax Department and Excise Department also. Even the State Bank of India through its Staff Circular 147 dated 7th October, 1983 appears to have realised that colour-blindness should not be treated as a bar to appointment except in the case of special categories of staff such as drivers etc. The opinion of eminent eye specialists was recited in the above circular of the State Bank of India which had revised the earlier dogmatic view of the Bank on the subject. It is needless to say that by making colour-blindness as a total bar for seeking employment with the Bank, a colour-blind person is virtually denied all opportunities to eke out his livelihood infringing his right under Art.21 of the Constitution. His future is doomed for ever. The question that arises for consideration is whether such a denial of Art. 21 based on the test of colour-blindness can be lawful.

(3.) The earlier practice in the Bank on the basis of which the petitioner was rejected for the Bank job has drawn the prohibition too widely and, therefore, too arbitrarily. Colour-blindness can never be counted as a total disqualification. A candidate, who is not found suitable to be a Bank driver because of his colour blindness, may yet be fit to be posted to a suitable clerical post with the Bank. If a colour-blind candidate can be recruited to the I.A.S., I.P.S. and other Central Services mentioned above disregarding his colourblindness, it is not easy to follow how the same candidate can be declared totally ineligible for a Bank's job. The work of a Probationary Officer in a Bank is not substantially different from that of an accountant in a Union Service or State Service. Clearly for want of classification the earlier ban of the Bank totally prohibiting recruitment of colour-blind candidates must be held to be unreasonable and unconstitutional. The vice of that ban lies in its over-breadth and width. The consequences of such a total ban by a State owned institution like the Bank would be completely disastrous for the biologically disadvantaged. I see no legal or moral justification behind this blind and unsympathetic attitude towards the biologically disadvantaged person. Such a rule so widely drawn cannot be regarded as having been made in conformity with the basic norm of republicanism. The American declaration of independence says that all men are created equal endowed by their creater with certain inalienable right to life, liberty and happiness. This is an axiomatic faith of republicanism. This principle of republicanism mandates the courts to eschew, so far as it is possible, the birth mark differences. The doctrines of eugenics are not for democracies although the great Judge Holmes appear to have lent his authority in Buck v. Bell, (1926) 274 US 200 at page 1000 of 71 L Ed. to them. I agree that in the complexities of human society, it may not always be possible to totally ignore the birth marks. But law should not heighten and maximise the biological disadvantages of birth. On the other hand, it should minimise their unfortunate impact on citizen's style of life and mode of living by lowering the impact and confining the applicability of those birth marks only to those areas when it becomes absolutely unavoidable. This calls for an intensive scrutiny of such condemnatory standards like colour-blindness by the Courts which should search for inherent reasonableness and reasonable classification of those standards. To start with the Courts must treat all such distinctions based on birth as suspect and calling for maximum of justification. Under the Constitution, inflicting such an injury on the biologically disadvantaged unless justified by compelling reasons of the State should not be upheld by the Courts. The right to pursue one's happiness is inalienable and undeniable. The Bank cannot easily deny that right. It is not as if a colour-blind man is always and is totally unsuitable to all appointments with the Bank. In this case itself, there is an expert medical opinion to the contrary. An eminent opthalmic surgeon Dr. Shyam Sunder Pershad had opined that the petitioner is fit to do any job in the capacity of officer in the Bank. Under the present Bank Circular, the petitioner is clearly eligible to be appointed as a Probationary Officer. In view of the above, the earlier total ban of colour-blind candidates should be declared unconstitutional. Accordingly I hold that the decision of the Bank rejecting the petitioner for appointment as a Probationary Officer based upon the then rule of total ban of colour-blind people is unconstitutional and should be set aside. Accordingly I direct a writ to issue directing the Bank to appoint the petitioner as a Probationary Officer.