Disability rights
On Monday 17th February, we attended a mediation session on behalf of Shri Deepak Rai against Iit Bombay concerning his case that they denied him certain reasonable accommodations that he needed as a visually disabled student pursuing a course in biotechnology at the masters level. After some discussion, Iit Bombay agreed to all the forward-looking accommodations sought by Mr Rai, such as providing him paid volunteer support, having a coordinator/person with a disability in the university’ equal opportunity cell, and asking him textual questions instead of graphical ones. The only sticking point is remediation for the harm already caused by virtue of the absence of reasonable accommodations in the subjects which he has already pursued and completed. On that, no settlement is possible. We are working to finalise the settlement agreement in these terms. And the issue as to the past papers would be left open for adjudication before the High Court.
The other significant development on Monday related to our ongoing case in the Ccpd on the accessibility of apps and websites to persons with disabilities. This case has been ongoing since August 2022. And hearings were held in July and August last year when all establishments against whom proceedings are ongoing were directed to commission an accessibility audit by an auditor certified by the international Association of Accessibility professionals and to either submit the audit report or at a minimum a letter of engagement evidencing the appointment of an auditor. despite multiple rounds of hearings, 155 establishments, 87 government and 68 Private, did not comply with this mandate. Consequently, each of them was penalised with a fine of ₹10,000 which they were directed to submit in the national fund for persons with disabilities. we feel that this is an important step in strengthening the legal mandate on digital accessibility in India and in underscoring the proposition that a failure to ensure accessibility will have consequences. We are not auntie any establishment and want to work collaboratively with them to the extent possible. However, ultimately the lack of access to these platforms results in an ongoing denial of civil rights and liberties for persons with disabilities and therefore this is a crucial intervention. The Ccpd order also stated that another review would be conducted on 28th February and Steeper fines would be imposed in case the non-compliance continues.
On Tuesday 18th February, we had two matters. The first was a new PIL filed in the Supreme Court against the UPSC. It related to the requirement of having to furnish details of a Scribe along with the application form IE many months before the actual date of the exam. Many candidates found this an extremely onerous burden and wrote to us to take it up legally when their effort to persuade the UPSC failed. The second issue is the inability of the candidates to change their Scribe details. And the third is the absence of an option to give the exam on the computer with a screen reader. we placed all these issues before the Supreme Court and were given a patient hearing. They re-notified the matter to 4th March. They orally stated that they would consider providing the option to choose multiple Scribes to deal with any contingencies or the ability to change Scribe details up to 1 week before the date of the exam.
The second matter was in the Ccpd on the issue of the accessibility of built environment in banks and ATMs. Here, our contention was that while there are a lot of good directives by the RBI and others on this issue, compliance with them needs to be rigourously tracked. and therefore as opposed to issuing any new directions, the Ccpd should ask for a status report from the RBI and the Department of financial services in the government of India so as to have the correct position on the status of compliance with their guidelines. The Ccpd was very receptive to our suggestions. We assisted the Office as an amicus in this matter.
On Friday 21st February, the Suyash Patil matter was listed for pronouncement of judgement in the Bombay High Court. We are very happy to report that the High Court agreed with our case. They acknowledged that given that Suyash has a benchmark disability, and that he has been found functionally competent to pursue medicine, he should be given admission in government medical College, Jalna. Accordingly, his admission was restored and a supernumerary seat was directed to be created in his favour. on Tuesday 25th February, we had two important matters listed. The first was in CAT in Tina Sharma’s case concerning the denial of reservation for those with hearing impairment in the combined medical service exams. We pointed out that the 2025 notification also does not give any reservation for those with hearing impairments and therefore the applicant here may not even be allowed to apply for this exam cycle. Accordingly the cat notified the matter to 7th March so that it can be decided before the closure of the current application cycle.
The second matter which was listed on Tuesday was in the Supreme Court concerning the exclusion of persons with disabilities from the Indian police service. This matter got dropped and got notified to Monday 3rd March.
In terms of new filings, we filed a rejoinder in the Mukesh Kumar matter before the Delhi High Court on the issue of the Ccpd staying the transfer of an employee with a disability from Faridabad to Badarpur and the scope of the powers of the Ccpd. The matter is listed for hearing on Monday third March. we also filed an SLP challenging a judgement of the Bombay High Court goa bench with respect to discriminatory treatment against the caregiver of a person with disability.
on the non-litigation front, we spoke at the rightscon conference in Taiwan on our project with whose knowledge on promoting the accessibility of Hindi language content on the internet. The conference also offered us an opportunity to engage with like-minded individuals and organisations from across the globe who are working on accessibility and human rights on the internet and to expand our footprint. we will aggressively be pursuing the leads that we identified in this conference. we also completed the formalities for the formation of an LLP that we will be running alongside our existing non-profit organisation. The llp is a for profit entity. This LLP will be used as a vehicle to pursue our Accessibility related services as well as legal services that are on a paid basis whether in disability rights in other areas of law.
Other human rights work:
On Monday 24th February, our matter was listed in the Delhi High Court concerning the denial of an opportunity to give exams to children from the OBC category due to non-payment of fees. The interim protection granted earlier was extended and the matter got renotified to 10th March.