A PIL has been filed in the Madras High Court seeking a direction to authorities to appoint qualified scribes for visually impaired students for public examinations beginning on March 5.
About 2,000 visually-challenged students writing their Plus Two examinations in Tamil Nadu run the risk of their answer quality being compromised, as there is no clear policy for engaging the services of quality scribes, said the PIL by visually impaired C Govindakrishnan,founder of 'Nethrodaya', an organisation working for the visually challenged.
The PIL said the CBSE's examination notifications for Class X and XII had made it clear that anyone suffering more than 40 per cent visual disability would be entitled to a scribe's services. Giving the flexibility of changing scribes to the student concerned, it said a candidate could take more than one scribe's services for writing different papers, especially language papers.
While CBSE has taken so much care, the state authorities have not implemented a similar circular issued by the secretary (public examinations) for students writing state board exams. The circular itself came to be issued on the basis of a representation from the petitioner seeking corrective steps in selecting and appointing qualified scribes for the sake of visually impaired students writing public exams.
On February 26, 2013, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment of Disability Affairs had issued an official memorandum containing certain guidelines for conducting written exams for persons with disabilities. It envisaged such provisions as ensuring level playing field for disabled persons in the country, and the need to fix separate criteria for regular and competitive exams.
He wanted the court to direct the authorities to appoint qualified scribes for the sake of visually impaired students for public exams beginning on March 5, and to permit students to opt for their own scribes/amanuensis one day before the exams.He also wanted the court to ask authorities to implement guidelines listed in the official memorandum.
When the matter was taken up today for hearing by the First Bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice M M Sundresh, it was made clear that the PIL could have no bearing on public exams this year, as they have either commenced, or about to start.
The judges, pointing out that the PIL-petitioner wanted state board exams to be conducted in the manner of CBSE exams, asked authorities to file their response within three weeks. They then adjourned the matter to April 21 for further proceedings.
