The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a blind person's petition seeking reservation of seats for visually handicapped persons in Parliament, state assemblies and local bodies saying this did not fall within the purview of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
A bench comprising justice N Santosh Hegde and Justice S B Sinha dismissed the public interest litigation filed by Surya Prakash Mahapatra, a blind person, seeking reservation of seats in Parliament and other elected bodies.
Mahapatra, arguing the case himself, said that though the visually handicapped persons form a sizeable population in the country, the elected representatives have done nothing for their cause.
To overcome this, a certain number of seats in Parliament and other elected bodies should be reserved for the blind as was done for the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe people, he argued.
The bench said to ask for certain amenities in the work place is one thing but to ask for reservation of seats for blind in elected bodies was completely a different aspect as it would involve amendment of the Constitution.
"Should there then be reservation for people who are part of linguistic minority," the bench asked.
