The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh recently set aside the cancellation of selection of Shivani Misri, a 100% visually impaired candidate, for the post of Junior Executive (Law) at the Airports Authority of India (AAI). The judgment was delivered by Justice Javed Iqbal Wani in the case Shivani Misri v. Union of India.

The Court held that the rejection of Misri’s candidature was arbitrary, discriminatory, and in clear violation of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. Emphasizing Section 3(5) of the Act, the Court noted that authorities are bound to provide reasonable accommodation to ensure equal opportunity for persons with disabilities.

"The respondents are directed to revisit and reconsider the case of the petitioner... Let the aforesaid exercise be commenced and concluded within a period of six weeks from today and a decision thereof be conveyed to the petitioner within two weeks thereafter," the Court directed.

Misri, a law graduate from Jammu University and LLM holder from a Punjab-based university, is currently a law professor at MIET Law College, Jammu. She had applied in 2022 for the AAI post under the reserved category for persons with benchmark disabilities. Of the 18 posts advertised, three were reserved for candidates with visual impairments, including blindness and low vision.

After qualifying the computer-based test and being declared successful in December 2023, her result was later withheld during the document verification stage. The AAI claimed that she did not fulfill the job’s “functional requirements” of seeing, reading, and writing. Despite submitting a revised disability certificate and an affidavit clarifying her disability category, her candidature was cancelled via a communication dated December 13, 2024.

The Centre argued that Misri’s certificate identified her as having "blindness," whereas she had applied under the "low vision" category. However, the Court found that the recruitment advertisement itself had specified eligibility for both blindness and low vision, and the authorities had failed to consider the legal mandate for reasonable accommodation.

Accordingly, the Court quashed the cancellation and ordered a fresh review of her case.

Advocate Nikhil Padha represented the petitioner, while Advocate Inderjeet Gupta appeared for the respondents.