Despite clearing the prestigious Civil Services Examination, Sunder Lal and Abhishek Singh found a seemingly insurmountable barrier in their way.

The two men with disabilities had dreamt of joining the Indian Administrative Service. But the Centre's department of personnel and training (DoPT) put Lal, who has 70 per cent hearing impairment, in the Indian Revenue Service (Customs & Central Excise), while Singh was assigned to the Indian Audit & Accounts Service.

It took another individual who had prevailed over similar challenges in his life to get them justice. And it was also the biggest moment of glory for visually impaired 64-year-old senior advocate SK Rungta, who has been fighting court battles for the rights of the disabled for the past 36 years. Justices Dinesh Gupta and KN Shrivastava of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) delivered the verdict in the five-year-long legal battle by directing the DoPT to put 38-year-old Lal and 39-year-old Singh in the IAS within three months. Since clearing the exam 10 years ago, the duo battled several hurdles besides disability- Lal uses hearing aids and Singh walks around using a foot caliper. But they say government apathy stopped them just short of achieving their dream, until now.

Lal hailing from Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh and Singh from Ropar in Punjab had moved the CAT in 2013 after the DoPT gave them lower-level posts against vacancies meant for the physically handicapped category, though they were selected on general merit.

"This judgment will benefit all such disability affected persons who had cleared the civil services but were downgraded citing various technicalities right from 1996," Rungta told Mail Today.

"I faced a lot of problems during the entire phase of preparation for civil services because of my hearing disability. I have already lost ten years. Only hope the government does not further delay my appointment by appealing to a higher court," said Lal.

Rungta was earlier instrumental in getting three per cent reservation in government and PSU jobs for the differently abled, fetching permission for visually impaired candidates to appear for the Civil Services Examination using scribes or Braille, in getting a court order that all differently abled students were entitled to free education till age of 18, and to persuade the DDA to provide preferential allotment of flats at concessional rates to the differently abled.

The Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 came into force on February 7, 1996. This meant that the three per cent reservation for the disabled had to be granted retrospectively.

The Supreme Court, Delhi High Court and CAT in several orders directed the Union Public Service Commission to prepare a comprehensive list of those eligible rights from 1996.

Following that, Lal and Singh were recommended IAS posts by the UPSC. But the DoPT refused to comply with it, forcing them to approach CAT.

"Aggrieved by the non-allotment of IAS, the applicant has filed the present case. We find that in an identical case of Ravindra U Garkal, this tribunal has already issued a direction for allotting him IAS in accordance with the recommendations of UPSC.

We find that the cases of these two applicants are identical to that of Ravindra U Garkal. Hence, we are of the view that these applicants are also entitled to identical reliefs," the tribunal ruled.