Madras High Court sought govt's reply on laptops for disabled students

CHENNAI:   The Madras High Court on Wednesday issued a notice to the Tamil Nadu government to respond to a petition seeking orders to the government to distribute free laptops to hearing and visually impaired students of government special schools.

The first bench of Acting Chief Justice T Raja and Justice D Krishnakumar issued the notice returnable by two weeks, and instructed the government to take positive action.

The petitioner, M Karpagam, an advocate of Chennai, said the government has been distributing free laptops to students of government and government-aided schools since 2011. Till 2016-17, as many as 38,53,572 laptops were procured and supplied in six phases. For the next three phases, procurement of 15,66,022 laptops was finalised and supply began in March 2019.

Saying that the government is obligated to provide reasonable accommodation to make education accessible to students with disability, she said that though visually impaired, she has been using electronic gadgets, particularly laptops, to study in school and college, and now to practise law.