The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a notice to the Union government and the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on a petition seeking inclusion of haemophilia—a rare blood clotting disorder—under the reservation framework for persons with benchmark disabilities in public employment.
A bench comprising Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi sought the Centre’s response while hearing a public interest litigation filed by Prema Ram, a person with haemophilia who holds a 50% benchmark disability certificate issued in 2018. The petitioner appeared in the Civil Services Examination in May but did not apply under the ‘persons with disability’ (PwD) quota since haemophilia is not among the 21 specified disabilities eligible for reservation under Section 34 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, 2016.
Senior advocate Jayna Kothari, representing the petitioner, argued that haemophilia leads to severe locomotor disability due to internal joint bleeding, which may cause limb deformities and impede mobility. Kothari contended that although haemophilia is listed as a ‘specified disability’ in the Schedule of the RPwD Act, individuals suffering from it remain excluded from the benefits of reservation granted under Section 34.
“If you have a locomotor disability, you will get it. We do not see any challenge to this. Reservation can be as per the legislation. You cannot make it equal for everybody,” the bench observed during the hearing, clarifying the current legal framework’s scope.
The petition highlights a significant gap in the RPwD Act: while haemophilia qualifies as a benchmark disability (i.e., 40% or more impairment), it is not covered for reservation in jobs unlike other conditions such as cerebral palsy, dwarfism, or acid attack survivors.
Filed through advocate Rohit Sharma, the plea underscored the life-altering consequences of severe haemophilia—characterised by uncontrollable bleeding due to the absence of clotting factors VIII (Haemophilia A) or IX (Haemophilia B). The condition often requires expensive and hard-to-access medical care, making employment support through reservation crucial for affected individuals.
The court has asked the Centre and the UPSC to respond to the petition, which also seeks directions to treat the petitioner as a disabled candidate for the purpose of UPSC examinations.
