Coming to the rescue of a visually- challenged IIT aspirant, the Delhi High Court has asked authorities to provide him a "scribe" of Science stream for taking the joint April 7 entrance exam and slammed the government for not fulfilling its duty to provide barrier-free environment to persons with disabilities.
The court said a person with disability "does not look for pity" and it is the duty and responsibility of the State and the citizens to provide "barrier-free equal opportunities" to persons with disabilities as part of aims and objectives of a legislation enacted in 1995.
"The respondents (Centre and others) in this case have showed complete lack of vision to fulfill the aims and objectives of the Persons with Disability (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation), Act, 1995, came into force on February 7, 1996...," Justice G S Sistani said.
In an interim order, the court said that Kartik Sawhney, who has undertaken 12th board exams this year, "will be provided a scribe...From the science stream, who has studied Science upto class XI" during the JEE for IIT.
The visually-challenged IIT aspirant said that the scribe from Commerce and Humanity background would neither be able to "read the questions properly nor they would be able to explain the visual inputs to blind candidates properly" and hence, it would cause "serious prejudice" to his rights in JEE.
He also said the scribes, who are not familiar with Mathematics and other Science subjects, will not be able to do the rough work.
The court asked the authorities, conducting JEE for IITs, to provide him a scribe of Science stream and allow the disabled candidate to meet and interact with his scribe one hour before the commencement of test.
"A person with disability does not look for pity, which is the first reaction of an individual, it is the duty and responsibility of the State and the citizens to create a barrier free environment for the persons with disabilities in terms of the provisions of the Act," it said.
