Vadodara: Vadodara may boast of having Asia’s largest district court, but it turns out that the litigants with physical disabilities do not have easy accessibility to the main court building.
While the heritage Nyay Mandir building was not disabled friendly, the new court complex despite being disabled-friendly has minor flaws that do not allow physically disabled people to reach the main building.
The roads and buildings department of the state government which constructed the building has created ramps and installed elevators in the building. However, barriers, low-height pillars and concrete blocks dividing the parking space and the inner compound do not allow disabled people to go towards the main building with their wheel-chairs.
It was on Tuesday that Vinod Mistry, a wheel-chair bound litigant, reached the court complex, but he could not go towards the main building as his wheel-chair could not pass through the little space between the low-height pillars. “My case has been going on since the past 25 years. I had hopes that the new court would be disabled friendly. I have been trying to figure out how to enter since two hours but because of this barricades and pillars I can’t enter,” said Mistry in a video widely circulated on social media.
“The government runs campaign for ‘divyangs’, but the state government has built such a building that people like me cannot enter,” he added. Mistry said that the security guards at the two gates told him that he could use the rear gate on Parisnagar side. “But when I went at the rear gate, the security guard there told me that litigants could not enter from there,” he said.
