The Delhi High Court on Wednesday has directed the Delhi University to reimburse Rs 2 lakhs to visually impaired students who have procured any textbooks in accessible forms and assistive devices to appear in the open book examination announced by the University.
The division bench comprising of Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw and Justice Asha Menon was hearing a petition filed by National Federation of the Blind challenging the Notifications dated 30th May, 2020 and 1st June, 2020 of DU notifying the conduct of open book examination for final semester/term/year students of all UG and PG programmes respectively, for the academic session 2019-2020.
The petitioner also sought directions to DU to assess the performance of visually impaired and other students with disabilities, of final semester for academic session 2019-2020, on the basis of their performance in the previous semester as well as internal assessment, on the same basis as has been decided to be done for other intermediate semester students.
Senior counsel SK Rungta appearing for the petitioner stated that the costs of acquiring text books in accessible form and assistive devices for the visually impaired students of final semester will not be more than Rs. 2 lakhs.
While directing the University to reimburse the visually impaired students, the bench directed the University to file its affidavit within a period of two weeks.
The bench has also directed the university to provide assistance to the visually impaired students in arranging scribes for the students. It further directed that these students will be entitled to participate in the second round of examination to be held in September 2020, to enable them to improve their scores.
The matter has been listed for next hearing on July 13.
Read the Order Here;
67720_2020-India Legal Bureau