Hyderabad High Court: A Division Bench comprising of Sanjay Kumar and M. Ganga Rao, JJ., dismissed a writ petition against denying candidature on the ground of developing medical conditions in the future.
The appointment of the respondent for Work Assistant at Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) was rejected by the petitioner on the grounds that he was medically unfit in view of his morbid obesity, uncontrolled hypertension and sleep disorder as opined by the Medical Committee.
The matter went up to the Central Administrative Tribunal where the order of cancellation was rejected by stating that that a candidate could not be declared unfit for a particular post merely on the ground that he suffered from a disease or disorder without a clear finding that he could not perform the duties and responsibilities attached to that particular post and also the mere apprehension that he may develop complications in future cannot be accepted.
The order was challenged, following which the Court stated that the nature of the work was not so onerous or strenuous that only a person in the pink of health could do it plus no specific standard of physical fitness other than visual acuity was required for appointment of a non-technical staff. Consequently, the fundamental level of the respondent was not impaired by his hypertension or being overweight.
The Court concluded by saying that the authorities seem to have gone on a witch-hunt to come up with new diseases/disorders so as to show the respondent the door and hence being utterly devoid of merit the writ petition was dismissed and the employment of the respondent was allowed as per the orders of the tribunal. [Union of India v. Nenavath Suresh,2018 SCC OnLine Hyd 294, order dated 31-08-2018]
