SC asks Centre to frame guidelines for scribes in competitive exams

The Supreme Court on Thursday held that a Writer's cramp can be considered as a disability entitling the afflicted person to take scribe to write competitive examinations, including the prestigious, Civil Services examinations conducted by the UPSC.

Maintaining that it was neither a largesse nor a privilege, the court said that provision for the facility of a scribe was in pursuance of the statutory mandate to ensure that persons with disabilities are able to live a life of equality and dignity based on respect in society for their bodily and mental integrity.

A three-judge bench presided over by Justice D Y Chandrachud directed the Centre to frame guidelines and norms within three months to protect the rights of disabled students to appear in all competitive examinations with help of scribe in conformity of the progressive outlook of Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016.

The bench, also comprising Justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna, said consultation with persons with disabilities and their involvement in decision making about matters affecting their lives was necessary to bring about any meaningful change in the realisation of their rights.

The court said a case-by-case approach must be adopted by the relevant body charged with the obligation of providing reasonable accommodation. It also stressed at "linguistic shift" in the way the persons with disabilities were referred to "evince a clear desire to make the disabled feel empowered and included, not alienated and situated on a different footing from their able-bodied counterparts".

Rejecting the Union government's argument for potential misuse of the facility, the bench said, "When competent persons with disabilities are unable to realise their full potential due to the barriers posed in their path, our society suffers, as much, if not more, as do the disabled people involved. In their blooming and blossoming, we all bloom and blossom."

The court said failure to meet the individual needs of every disabled person will breach the norm of reasonable accommodation and flexibility in answering individual needs and requirements was essential for it.

The court passed its judgement on a civil appeal filed by Vikas Kumar, an MBBS, who suffered disability in the form of dysgraphia, commonly known as a Writer’s Cramp. He was denied a scribe by the UPSC as the rules allowed candidates with locomotor disability and cerebral palsy only to take the help of a scribe.

The court said, "To confine the facility of a scribe only to those who have benchmark disabilities would be to deprive a class of persons of their statutorily recognised entitlements. To do so would be contrary to the plain terms as well as the object of the Act."

It said the UPSC would be a loser in denying to the nation the opportunity to be served by highly competent people who claimed nothing but access to equal opportunity and a barrier-free environment.