On 1st April 2010 ASK, BLAST, ADD and a visually impaired man served a legal notice on the government, seeking reply within seven days as to why the man would not be issued an admit card to sit for the BCS examinations.

It has been mentioned in the notice that Shapan Chowkider who is a visually impaired person, obtained LLB and LLM degrees from Dhaka University respectively in 2008 and 2009. He was then enrolled  in Bangladesh Bar Council as an Advocate after passing the written and viva examinations and started practicing as a lawyer.  He applied for the 28th BCS Examination but was not issued the admit card.  He then wrote repeatedly to the Prime Minister to bring the issue to her notice, but failed to get any response from her office.

Recently the Public Service Commission issued a circular for the 30th BCS examinations where they declared that Bangladesh Civil Service (Age, Qualification and Examination for direct recruitment) Rules, 1982 will be followed. This rule has set some criteria for physical fitness which will be an obstruction in getting jobs for physically impaired persons.

The legal notice highlighted that this is inconsistent with the Article 40,27,15,20 of the Constitution of Bangladesh that guaranteed the right to equal opportunity of work.  Moreover, this lacks the conformity with the Section 6(2) of the Disability Welfare Act and The UN Convention on the Rights of the Persons with Disability (CRPD).

The notice requested and demanded the  government authority to take all necessary measures as guaranteed by the Constitution and other laws of the country to protect the persons with disabilities in public employment including (1) taking necessary steps to create oppoptunities for persons with disabilities to be employed in specific arena; (2) crearting equal employment opportunity; (3) adopting measures for relaxing the age limit for persons with disabilities in the services in public sector and (4) adopting measures for reserving quotas for persons with disabilities in the services in public sector .

The notice has been issued to the Secretaries of Estalishment ministry, Law and Parliamentary affairs Ministry and Social Welfare Ministry, PSC Chairman, Secretary and Examination Controller. Supreme Court Advocate Khondoker Shahriar Shakir issued the legal notice on behalf of the petitioners.