Disability rights
On Monday, we had two matters listed. The first was an SLP on behalf of Kabir Paharia who is an MBBS aspirant with 5 half grown fingers who was denied MBBS admission and could not succeed in the High Court. The Supreme Court issued notice in the matter and listed it for January. The second was Deepak Rai’s petition with respect to the challenges that he is facing as a blind masters student at Iit Bombay. This case could not be taken up even on Monday as the matter did not reach. It was filed in March but has still not been taken up even once.
On Thursday, we had two hearings. The first was a special leave petition on behalf of the All Bengal Blind teachers’ Association concerning the dismissal of 18 blind teachers from government funded schools in West Bengal in light of the judgement of the Calcutta High Court in April. We submitted to the court that these candidates are untainted and that in any event some compassion should be shown to them. And especially to those who are already in service and sat for the exam leading to the panel in question only to get a promotion. The CJI’s bench heard arguments in the matter all day and they renotified the matter for seventh January. The second was a writ petition filed by us on OTT content Accessibility. Here, the court main three important directions. First, in directing the producers to incorporate the requisite accessibility features within eight weeks. Second, in directing MIB to evolve a framework to ensure accessibility of content on OTT platforms and to file an affidavit within four weeks. third, it also pushed Amazon in the direction of issuing instructions to its stakeholders to ensure that all the content that they submit to it has Accessibility features.
On Friday, three matters were listed. The first was in the Delhi High Court on behalf of a student appearing for the net UGC examination on 7 January 2025 who wants to give the exam independently with a screen reading software. we told the court that this is a covered matter in light of the recent Supreme Court order and the court directed the national testing agency to evolve the modalities for meeting the petitioner’s grievance before the exam and notified the matter for 30th December. the second case concerned the exclusion of those with SLD from the ambit of reservation in the Civil Service Exams. we told the court that notification for the 2025 cycle will be issued on 22nd jan. If the matter is not resolved by then, this problem may get repeated next year. The court directed UPSC to file their counter and observed that cost of INR 3000 will otherwise be imposed on them. It renotified the matter on 21st Jan. Lastly, Jahanvi Nagpal’s writ petition was listed in Delhi High Court. The case raises important questions about reservation in education. It did not reach and was renotified to 19th February.
Other human rights work:
we filed a writ petition on behalf of a hawker whose stall was shut down in July and who is not been able to get a fresh vending license despite exhausting all reasonable avenues. secondly, we filed a writ petition on behalf of a student from EWS category who has been denied admission in the EWS quota under the Right to Education Act. these cases should come up soon.