If you work for a government establishment and you acquire a disability during your service, your employer cannot end your service and cannot reduce you in rank because of it. Section 20 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 sets out what must happen instead.
Most people read section 20 as one flat promise. It is not. Sub-section 4 is a ladder: the next rung opens only when the one above it genuinely fails.
Rung 1. You keep your post. This is the default.
The operative words: “No Government establishment shall dispense with or reduce in rank, an employee who acquires a disability during his or her service”.
Dispense with means end your service. Reduce in rank means move you to a lower post. Neither is allowed where the disability was acquired during service. That is the starting position.
Rung 2. If you are not suitable for that post, you are shifted, on the same pay scale.
The first proviso: “Provided that, if an employee after acquiring disability is not suitable for the post he was holding, shall be shifted to some other post with the same pay scale and service benefits”.
The trigger is narrow. Not that you have a disability, but that you are not suitable for the post you were holding. The remedy is a shift, not a demotion, and the text names what travels with you: the same pay scale, and service benefits.
Rung 3. If no post can be found, a supernumerary post holds you in service.
The second proviso: “Provided further that if it is not possible to adjust the employee against any post, he may be kept on a supernumerary post until a suitable post is available or he attains the age of superannuation, whichever is earlier.”
This rung opens only where no post at all can be found, so it is the last rung, not the first offer. Even then you stay in service, until a suitable post appears or superannuation, whichever is earlier.
Read together, the design is plain. If not that post, another post on the same pay scale. If no post, an extra post. The design keeps the employee inside service.
The Act uses the phrase without defining it. Supernumerary means beyond the usual number, so a supernumerary post is one outside the normal count of posts in an office, created so a person can stay on the rolls when no regular post fits.
Sub-section 1, and the exemption proviso. The rule is wide: “No Government establishment shall discriminate against any person with disability in any matter relating to employment”. Then comes the honest part. The appropriate Government “may, having regard to the type of work carried on in any establishment, by notification and subject to such conditions, if any, exempt any establishment from the provisions of this section.” Read those last words: the power is to exempt from the provisions of this section, not sub-section 1 alone. So the protection is strong but not unconditional. What makes that workable is that an exemption must be by notification, and the Act defines notification as “a notification published in the Official Gazette”. If you are told your office is outside section 20, that notification either exists or it does not.
Sub-section 2. “Every Government establishment shall provide reasonable accommodation and appropriate barrier free and conducive environment to employees with disability.” The Act defines reasonable accommodation as “necessary and appropriate modification and adjustments, without imposing a disproportionate or undue burden in a particular case”. That definition carries its own limit, but the duty is written as shall.
Sub-section 3. “No promotion shall be denied to a person merely on the ground of disability.”
Sub-section 5. “The appropriate Government may frame policies for posting and transfer of employees with disabilities.” This is a may, so such a policy may or may not exist. If one does, it is a document, and a document can be asked for.
Who counts as a Government establishment. The Act defines it as “a corporation established by or under a Central Act or State Act or an authority or a body owned or controlled or aided by the Government or a local authority or a Government company as defined in section 2 of the Companies Act, 2013 and includes a Department of the Government”. Read your own employer against those words.
Each of these is a place where the ladder quietly gets skipped.
Almost all the harm here is done out loud. Someone says there is no post. Someone says the rule does not apply. None of it can be tested until it is on paper. Ask early, before the decision hardens.
To The Public Information Officer [Establishment name and address] Subject: Application under the Right to Information Act, 2005 Please supply: 1. Any notification under the proviso to sub-section 1 of section 20 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 exempting this establishment, with the conditions attached, if any. 2. The policy, if any, framed under sub-section 5 of section 20 of that Act on posting and transfer of employees with disabilities here. 3. The list of posts here identified as suitable for persons with disabilities. 4. All file notings, correspondence and orders on the file of my case, [name, designation, employee number], for [date] to date. 5. Any order shifting me to another post, with the note recording the pay scale and service benefits of that post. 6. The record of any decision that it was not possible to adjust me against any post, and any order creating or refusing a supernumerary post for me. 7. Name and designation of the officer competent to decide under sub-section 4 of section 20 of that Act here. The prescribed application fee is enclosed. [Signature] [Full name, postal address, phone]
If no exemption notification exists, the reply saying so is written proof. If a posting policy exists, hold the decision up against it. If no record of the search for a post can be produced, there is no post for you has nothing behind it.
Draft it with the AI RTI Drafter, check your state fee on the State-wise RTI fees page, and watch the clock with the Timeline Tracker. Test the reply with the PIO Reply Checker, and if it is late or evasive, use the First Appeal Builder. The process is in the RTI Act, 2005, and the full method is in The RTI Playbook.
Section 20 is addressed to Government establishments, and that scope limit matters more than anything else here. The Act deals with private employers separately: its definitions clause says establishment includes “a Government establishment and private establishment”, and defines private establishment on its own. Nothing on this page tells you what a private employer must do.
No. Sub-section 4 says no Government establishment shall dispense with or reduce in rank an employee who acquires a disability during service.
The first proviso applies. If you are not suitable for the post you were holding, you shall be shifted to some other post with the same pay scale and service benefits. That is a shift, not an exit.
The proviso describes a shift with the same pay scale and service benefits. If an order drops you to a lower pay scale, ask in writing for the reason recorded on file.
The Act defines Government establishment to include “a Government company as defined in section 2 of the Companies Act, 2013”, along with the other bodies quoted above. Check your employer against that definition.
Yes, because the proviso is real. The appropriate Government may, by notification and subject to conditions, exempt an establishment. Since a notification is published in the Official Gazette, you can ask by RTI whether one covers you.
The policy under sub-section 5 on posting and transfer of employees with disabilities, and the file notings in your own case. Together they show whether the ladder was followed.