The High Court on Thursday remarked that it is the responsibility of the Delhi University (DU) to provide scribes for visually handicapped students, “otherwise the whole process of online Open Book Exam (OBE) would be a mockery”.
A Bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Subramonium Prasad questioned the preparedness of the varsity with regard to the set up for persons with disabilities (PWD) students, especially visually impaired. The court ordered DU to clarify its position with respect to the arrangement of scribes for visually impaired students by the next date of hearing on August 4.
The court’s direction came after DU and Common Service Centre (CSC) Academy gave contradictory statements with regards to arrangement for scribe for the PWD students for the OBE.
DU has engaged the CSC Academy under the aegis of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), to facilitate the students with either limited or no network and hardware facility to appear for the OBE without payment of fee.
While DU maintained that it has asked CSC to arrange for scribe when asked by the students, CSC CEO Dinesh Kumar Tyagi said there was no special arrangement for PWD students.
The Bench noted that “things are murky”. It perused the affidavit filed by DU and noted that out of 647 PWD students, 486 logged in. Of the 182 visually impaired students, only 50% logged in and even lesser uploaded the answer.
Delhi University responded that it was not mandatory for the students to appear for online OBE and they can give the physical exams later in September. It is only in the interest of students that the online exams are being conducted, DU said.
The court said the university was closing PWD students’ right to appear through the online mode by not providing them proper facilities, including scribes. The Bench said it wanted to make sure that “students are not left high and dry”.
The High Court was hearing pleas by law student Prateek Sharma and National Federation of Blind seeking to set up effective mechanisms for visually impaired and diffrently abled students so that educational instructions can be transmitted to them properly and teaching material is provided to them through online mode of teaching during the pandemic.