Disability rights
On Monday, 10th March, we had one matter listed in the Delhi High Court. This was on behalf of Harshdeep Singh, a student with cerebral palsy who alleged that he had failed in 8 of his law exams as the examiners could not understand his disability-induced poor handwriting. The judge was on leave and the matter was renotified to Wednesday 12th March.
On Wednesday, when the matter was taken up, counsel for DU submitted that the results of 7 out of the 8 reevaluated typed answerbooks are now available and Harshdeep has unfortunately not managed to clear any of them. There really isn’t anything else that we can say in response to that. The matter has been renotified for 26th March on which date it may get disposed off.
We also had one CCPD hearing on Monday. This was on behalf of Kishan Makhecha who is a person with a locomotor disability working in ICICI bank and argues that the bank has not promoted him because of his disability. The Gujarat High Court had directed the CCPD to decide the matter within 6 weeks.
In the hearing, we argued that Kishan is being made to work on the job of a Deputy Manager despite being given the pay and post of an Assistant Manager. That the reasons cited by the bank for denying him promotion – that of his unwillingness to relocate or to take on higher responsibilities are baseless. And that if an organizational chart is produced of his rank compared to that of his counterparts who were recruited along with him in 2014, the discrimination will become clear. The court heard both sides and directed the bank to answer some specific queries framed by the Court. The bank filed its response on 13th March. We have filed our rebuttal to that on the 15th, and the CCPD’s order should come out in the matter soon.
We also took up one new matter on behalf of the Visually Impaired Bank Employees’ Welfare Association, concerning discrimination against persons with visual disabilities in the matter of promotion in a bank and noncompliance by the bank with the CCPD’s recommendation in that regard. We will be filing a writ petition in this matter this week.
In Suyash Patil’s matter, we tried to continue to reach out to the NMC to ensure compliance with the Bombay High Court judgment by which a supernumerary seat was created for Suyash, but with no success. This week, we are planning on instituting contempt proceedings, in coordination with the local lawyer.
On Monday, we also assisted one SCPD on a request made by them for legal support in approaching the news channels in their state for ensuring accessible news broadcasts for persons with hearing disabilities.
We are also in talks with the government and some SCPDs about an exciting new collaboration and should hopefully have an update on that soon.
Since the courts were closed this week, we did not have any more cases.
Other human rights work:
On Monday, we had a matter listed in the Delhi High Court on behalf of contractual employees in the DCW. This hearing was on the issue of the DCW not continuing its crisis intervention centres beyond 31st December 2024, thus leaving the fate of the women working for the same in a state of limbo. The court directed us to institute a fresh writ petition on this issue.
On Wednesday, in the same matter, two new applications were listed. The first concerns the nonpayment of salaries to these women between August and December 2024. And the second is concerned with the impleadment of 10 more persons who are in the same boat as the 6 petitioners. The Court issued notice on both applications and listed the matter for 8th May.
On Wednesday, the Bhimlesh Devi matter was also listed on behalf of children in the OBC category not being allowed to sit for exams due to nonpayment of fees. This was only a procedural hearing and as such there is nothing to report on this score.