DU’s responsibility to provide writers to visually impaired students for online exams: HC

To this, the bench said the university was closing the right of students on persons with disability (PwD) category to appear through the online mode by not providing them proper facilities including scribes. 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 specially-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 COVID-19 pandemic.

The Delhi High Court Thursday made it clear that it is the responsibility of Delhi University to make available writers for visually impaired students or else the process of online Open Book Examinations (OBE) for final year undergraduate courses would be a "mockery" for them. A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad directed Delhi University (DU) to clarify the position on arrangement of scribes at CSE Centres and elsewhere for students in visually impaired (VH) category by the next date of hearing on August 5, to enable them to participate in the online OBE.

While the varsity maintained that scribes will be made available to visually impaired students by the CSE Centres, which have been set up to provide services to students who do not have infrastructure to give OBE, the CEO of CSE Academy clarified that it was not their duty to arrange for scribes and they do not have such writers at the centres. "There is complete mismatch of statements made by the two sides. There is complete contradiction. Why are you (DU) giving wrong hope to students that everything is available at CSE centres. Why are you misrepresenting them," said the bench, which was conducting the proceedings through video conferencing.

The bench added "Quite clearly, it is the responsibility of the Delhi University to make scribes available for the VH students. Otherwise, the whole process of conducting the OBE online examinations for them would be reduced to a mockery." Senior advocate Sachin Dutta, representing DU, said it was not mandatory for the students to appear in 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, he added. To this, the bench said the university was closing the right of students on persons with disability (PwD) category to appear through the online mode by not providing them proper facilities including scribes.

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 specially-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 COVID-19 pandemic. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Sharma, said the university was playing with the lives of students. He said even in some parts of urban areas, e-mails do not work and in remote areas there is no electricity.

During the hearing, Dutta said that out of 2,43,823 students who have submitted their examination forms, 1,82,237 students have registered on the portal of the University during the first phase of the Mock test. Out of 1,82,237, only 74,180 students have logged in and 39,159 students have attempted the question papers, he said.

The court said these figures reveal that 8 per cent of the total number of students who had registered on the portal of the university have participated in the first phase of the mock test and the data is "not very encouraging to say the least". The court said the data relating to students in the PwD category and the visually handicapped (VH) category are equally dismal. "Look at their discomfort. They are uncomfortable with the set up and they do not know about scribes," it said, adding that it is the duty of the varsity to see that students are not left high and dry at any stage.

It asked the varsity to submit, on August 5, the data of both phases of the mock tests in tabulated form. While the first mock test was to conclude on July 29, the second phase will be conducted from August 1 to 4. Senior advocate R S Rungta, appearing for petitioner National Federation of Blind, said that about 189 visually impaired students have requested DU to arrange scribes for them. Despite that, the varsity has not arranged reading material, assistive devices and scribes for them at the CSE Centres.

The high court had earlier questioned the DU of its lack of preparedness and facilities, including arrangement of scribes and CSE Centres, for differently-abled students to enable them to appear in the online OBE. DU is scheduled to hold final year undergraduate online OBE from August 10-31 and the students who will be left out of online exams will be given an opportunity to appear in physical examinations, to be held sometime in September.