Delhi HC notice to Centre over acid attack victim plea

New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Friday sought the response of the Centre and the AIIMS on a plea by an acid attack survivor against a notification by the hospital on recruitment of staff nurses saying such victims were not placed under the quota for persons with disability.

Justice P.S. Teji issued notice to the central government and the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and posted the matter for further hearing on September 13.

The judge also permitted the 30-year-old woman petitioner to apply for the post under the general category and said her plea, to be placed under the physically handicapped category, would be decided in the final verdict.

The woman has challenged the June 13 notification issued by the AIIMS for recruitment of staff nurses in which acid attack victims were not given the quota under the category of persons with disability.

The petition said that acid attack is a specified disability under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, and that she has 57 per cent permanent disability.

The plea, filed through advocate Govind Jee, claimed that she was unable to apply for the post of nursing officer as notified by the hospital while applying for the same, the options for persons with bench-mark disability is one leg category.

She sought quashing of the decision of the authorities to exclude the acid attack victims from the disabled category and that they should not be discriminated within public  appointments and reservation on such posts.

The woman received acid burns in 2004 when she was attacked by a group of men at Shamli, UP. She was a minor then. She later completed her senior secondary school and in 2014 she finished her diploma in general nursing and midwifery from Jamia Hamdard University.

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