The Telangana High Court Thursday passed an interim order allowing a visually impaired candidate to apply for the post of Assistant Public Prosecutors (APPs), bypassing a clause in the notification. The petitioner, Koppula Sravan Kumar, filed the writ petition after the recruitment notification’s clause 11(D)(ii) that explicitly excludes candidates suffering from visual impairment. After hearing the arguments, the Division Bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice G M Mohiuddin Bench said: “In view of the above facts and circumstances, the petitioner may be allowed to submit the application in the instant recruitment Notification Rc. No.234 dated 15.08.2025.” The deadline to apply for the post is October 15. The petitioner’s counsel submitted that if a candidate who has acquired a law degree can be considered suitable for appointment as a judicial officer despite his or her visual impairment, the individual should equally be eligible to apply for the post of an Assistant Public Prosecutor. He argued that the Supreme Court has recently struck down a similar exclusion rule for judicial service appointments in a 2024 judgment, and the same principle should apply to the post of Assistant Public Prosecutor. The decision, therefore, should apply to the case of the petitioner and other similarly situated visually impaired candidates who suffer from a benchmark disability of 40 per cent, the counsel said. He requested the court that during the pendency of this application, the petitioner may be allowed to submit his application on or before the cut-off date, i.e, 15.10.2025. The High Court acknowledged the circumstances and directed that the petitioner's application be accepted immediately. However, the court clarified that the acceptance of the application is subject to the outcome of the ongoing writ petition. The court has granted the state's counsel three weeks to obtain instructions and has listed the matter for further hearing on November 10.
