Disability rights:
On Tuesday [14th January], we appeared in a hearing in CAT on behalf of an employee in the Department of Posts. The case was filed on the ground that, in a promotional exam which this employee wanted to sit for, only low vision persons were eligible to apply for the exam and those who are totally blind were excluded. In September 2024, the court had allowed, by way of an interim measure, this candidate to sit in the exam. Now what survives is the legal issue as to whether this discrimination between blind and low vision persons is legally acceptable. On this, the CAT directed the respondent Department of Posts to file its reply and listed the matter for sometime in February.
On Wednesday, we had two matters listed. The first was the Suyash Patil case concerning MBBS admission for a student with speech and hearing disability. This matter has been stuck in the Bombay High Court for many months and it was not taken up on the 15th and renotified to 29th January. We took a decision, in consultation with the client, to file an SLP in the Supreme Court against this order. However, the 15th Jan order strangely records that none appeared for the Petitioner on that day when the matter in fact didn’t reach. We are seeking to obtain clarity on this before proceeding with the SLP.
Secondly, the West Bengal Teachers’ scam matter was listed in the Supreme Court. The court heard further submissions from the petitioners. They argued that there should be a segregation between tainted and untainted candidates and that treating all teachers with the same broad brush is impermissible. The matter will now be taken up on 27th Jan for the CBI’s submissions which will be very crucial.
On Thursday, Harshdeep Singh’s matter was listed in the Delhi High Court. In line with the court orders, our client, whose handwriting is impacted by him having cerebral palsy, has submitted the typed answerbooks of all 8 papers that he had failed in. We requested that these now be evaluated by the examiners, and we are happy to report that the Court directed the examiners to do so in 3 weeks and report the result to the Petitioner.
In terms of new filings, we filed the rejoinder in Vinayakrao Desai’s matter which raises the legal question as to whether the property manager of a mentally ill person can make a will on her behalf. The case is listed on Tuesday.
Apart from our litigation work, we also conducted two workshops in Bhubaneswar, on the invitation of the Odisha SCPD. The first one was on promoting access to justice for persons with disabilities in which more than 70 people were in attendance, including senior government and judicial functionaries. The second one, conducted in collaboration with Vidhi, was on accessibility of public buildings in Odisha.
We also conducted two workshops for the Missing Billion – an organization that works on promoting access to healthcare for the disabled – on document accessibility.
We also recorded an interview for the Print in a series being run by them on lawyers with disabilities.
Next, we recorded an episode with Radio Udaan for our joint series, this time on the ongoing Delhi High Court case on stray animals and service animals.
Lastly, we advised the Delhi High Court Accessibility Committee to conduct a workshop with the makers of Adobe Reader and its pro version, to help resolve the challenges faced by lawyers with visual disabilities in using this software independently.
Other human rights work:
On Monday, our contempt petition was listed in the Delhi High Court on behalf of contractual employees of the DCW who have not been paid their salaries despite a court order directing them to do so. The Court strongly rebuked the DCW and directed them to file a compliance affidavit within 2 weeks.
We also ran the second session in the Justice Connect Helpline in which we answered 12 queries, 7 on the phone and 5 via email.
Lastly, we recorded another episode of the “Law Beyond Labels” series that we have started in collaboration with Live Law. Topics covered included right to personality, the legal framework on the delhi pollution issue and understanding how to navigate the legal system from the standpoint of a citizen. The series seeks to demystify the law for the average citizen.