State Cannot Dissect Certified Multiple Disabilities to Deny Service Extension Until 60; Multiple Disabilities Are a Distinct Specified Disability Under the RPwD Act: Punjab and Haryana High Court

Case Name: Sakander Singh Virk v. State of Punjab and Others

Date of Judgment: 19 August 2026

Citation: CWP No. 16604 of 2026

Bench: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Namit Kumar

Held: The Punjab and Haryana High Court held that where a competent medical authority certifies an employee as having an overall disability of 44% arising from multiple specified disabilities, the State cannot artificially segregate the individual components of 25% hearing impairment and 25% locomotor disability to contend that neither disability independently meets the statutory threshold of 40%. “Multiple disabilities” are expressly recognised as a distinct specified disability under Section 2(zc), read with Item 5 of the Schedule to the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. Consequently, an employee whose aggregate multiple disability exceeds 40% qualifies as a “person with benchmark disability” under Section 2(r) of the Act.

The Court further held that Rule 3.27 of the Punjab Civil Services Rules, Volume I, Part I, is a special provision governing the retirement age of government employees with specified disabilities and begins with a non obstante clause overriding Rule 3.26. Therefore, the requirement under Rule 3.26 of submitting an option three months before retirement cannot be imported into Rule 3.27 to defeat the employee’s statutory entitlement to continue in service until the age of 60 years.

Medical examination by the Civil Surgeon is also not an automatic precondition for every employee seeking the benefit of Rule 3.27. Such examination may be required only when the appointing authority has reason to believe that the employee is mentally or physically unsuitable to discharge the duties of the post. If the authorities considered a medical examination necessary, it was for them to direct the employee to undergo it; the employee could not be penalised for their own failure to do so.

Summary: The petitioner, a Punjab Police employee, was due to retire on attaining the age of 58 years on 28 February 2026. Before his retirement, he sought continuation in service until the age of 60 years under Rule 3.27 of the Punjab Civil Services Rules. A disability certificate issued by the Chief Medical Officer recorded that he had 25% hearing impairment and 25% locomotor disability, resulting in an overall disability of 44%.

The authorities rejected his request principally on the ground that neither of the two disabilities, when considered separately, reached the benchmark threshold of 40%. They also relied upon the alleged failure to submit the option three months before retirement and the absence of a medical examination by the Civil Surgeon. Even after the High Court had earlier directed reconsideration of his claim in light of Prem Nath v. Punjab Water Resources Management and Development Corporation and Others, the authorities reiterated substantially the same grounds and again rejected the request.

Rejecting the State’s interpretation, the High Court observed that the statutory scheme does not place each disability in a separate compartment. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 expressly recognises the cumulative effect of more than one specified disability as “multiple disabilities”. Once the competent medical authority had certified the petitioner’s overall multiple disability at 44%, and neither the certificate nor the competence of the certifying authority was disputed, the State could not disaggregate the disabilities merely to deprive him of the statutory benefit.

The Court also found that the reconsideration order did not meaningfully comply with its earlier directions, as it failed to properly apply Rule 3.27, the provisions of the 2016 Act and the principles laid down in Prem Nath. The objection regarding the availability of a departmental appeal was rejected because no specific statutory provision providing such an appeal had been identified and the impugned order itself had been passed pursuant to an earlier direction of the High Court.

Decision: The High Court allowed the writ petition and quashed the orders dated 23 February 2026 and 20 April 2026 denying the petitioner an extension in service. The petitioner was declared entitled to continue in service until attaining the age of 60 years. Since he had already been retired on 28 February 2026, the respondents were directed to permit him to rejoin forthwith and continue until the age of 60 years. They were also directed to release all consequential service and monetary benefits, including arrears of salary from 1 March 2026 until the date of his rejoining.