The Delhi High Court in a recent order stated that it is the responsibility of Delhi University to provide scribes for the visually impaired students or the process of the Online Open Book Examinations for the final year UG students will be a mockery for them.
Petition filed by National Federation of Blind
The Delhi High Court was hearing pleas filed by the law students and the National Federation of Blind seeking to set up effective mechanisms for the specially-abled students so that the educational instructions can be transmitted to them along with the teaching material provided to them in the online mode during the lockdown.
The Delhi High Court Bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad directed the Delhi University to clarify the position of the university on the arrangement of scribes for the students in persons with disabilities (PwD) category by the next date of hearing on August 5, 2020.
Although the university has stated that scribed will be available to the usually impaired students by the CSE Centres set up to provide the services who do not have the infrastructure to provide OBE, the CEO of the CSE Academy has clarified that it was not their duty to arrange for scribes and that they do not have such writers at thee centres.
The bench conducting the proceedings via video conferencing stated that there is a complete mismatch of statements made by the two sides and there is a complete contradiction. The bench asked the university as to why wrong hopes were given to the students stating that everything is available at the CSE Centres and why they were being misrepresented. The bench further added that it is clear that it is the responsibility of the Delhi University to provide scribes for visually handicapped students or the whole process for the online OBE is a mockery for the students.
The counsel appearing for the Delhi University stated that it was not mandatory for the students to appear for the examinations and they can give the physical exams later in September and it is only in the interest of the students that the exams are being conducted.
In response to this statement, however, the High Court bench stated that the university was closing the rights of the PwD students to appear for the exams in the online mode by not provisioning them with the required facilities.
The Delhi High Court had questioned the university over its lack of preparedness for the exams including arrangements of scribes and CSE centres for the differently-abled students in order to enable them to appear for the online examinations.
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