New Delhi, Aug. 5 -- The employer's discretion ends where the employee's dignity begins, the Supreme Court held while ruling that public sector employers cannot mechanically retire employees who acquire disabilities during service without first exploring meaningful alternatives for their redeployment. "While judicial restraint guards against overreach, it must not become an excuse for disengagement from injustice. When an employee is removed from service for a condition he did not choose, and where viable alternatives are ignored, the Court is not crossing a line by intervening, it is upholding one drawn by the Constitution itself," said a bench of justices JK Maheshwari and Aravind Kumar, in a significant reaffirmation of the constitutional right to dignity and equality in employment. The August 1 judgment came as the bench directed the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) to reinstate a driver who was compulsorily retired in 2016 after being diagnosed with colour blindness. Coming down hard on TSRTC for its failure to consider alternative roles for the driver, who had expressed willingness to be reassigned to a non-driving post, the court held that this omission was not just an administrative lapse, but a violation of both statutory obligations and constitutional principles. The judgment drew upon the principle that public employers are duty-bound to provide "reasonable accommodation" to employees who acquire disabilities during service. Retirement on medical grounds, the court said, must be a measure of last resort, only after all viable options for redeployment have been exhausted. "The obligation to reasonably accommodate such employees is not just a matter of administrative grace, but a constitutional and statutory imperative, rooted in the principles of non-discrimination, dignity and equal treatment," noted the bench. The judgment further drew strength from a consistent line of rulings to reaffirm that beneficial legislation must be interpreted purposively to protect the rights of disabled employees. "Employment security is central not only to individual dignity but also to familial survival," said the court, emphasising that livelihood cannot be severed "by the stroke of a medical certificate" without first exhausting all avenues for reassignment. The court cited the example of the driver seeking reassignment to the post of Shramik (helper) , a job that did not require normal colour vision. However, the Corporation did not even attempt to assess his suitability for such a role. The burden lies on the employer, not the employee, to prove that no suitable post exists or can be reasonably created, the bench noted, and ordered the Corporation to appoint the driver to a suitable post consistent with his condition, at the same pay grade he held in 2016, within eight weeks. It also directed payment of 25% of arrears from the date of retirement until reinstatement and held that the intervening period must be treated as continuous service....