P-PIL

Fostering Effective Access for the Disabled

In our first attempt at securing effective access to education for disabled students, P-PIL successfully convinced and assisted the organizers of the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) and National Law University, Delhi (NLUD) entrance examination in adopting a disabled friendly policy for visually impaired candidates. Raghul Sudheesh of Bar and Bench reported this in a story here.

Earlier, a 17 year old visually disabled candidate, Yugul Jain, requested the CLAT organizers to allow him to bring a scribe of his choice for writing the examination. The reason, Yugul states in an email addressed to the CLAT Help Desk: ‘Often at times, it so happens that externally provided scribes do not work well with the disabled candidates. This might have a detrimental effect on writing an exam like CLAT in which the time management is the key factor. There should be good understanding between candidate and his scribe.’ In the alternative, Yugul requested them to permit use of computer facility.

The CLAT organizers turned down both the requests and informed the candidate that a scribe will be provided by them at the examination centre and an additional time of 30 minutes will be given to write the exam.

The Indian Constitution recognizes the rights of disabled to access barrier free education. Several educational institutions permit visually impaired candidates to bring their own scribes. The National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) at Kolkata which organized CLAT last year also permitted disabled students to self-appoint scribes on condition that the scribe is at least one educational level below the candidate and is not pursuing a law degree.

The P-PIL team (consisting of Prof Basheer, Sai Vinod, Akshay Sharma, Vatsala Sahay and Sahana Manjesh) submitted a carefully crafted petition highlighting the issue and along with it a detailed note on the rights of visually impaired and provision of scribe facility. The research note tilted ‘Fostering Effective Access for the Disabled’ highlighted a decision of the Bombay High Court vide order dated December 18, 2006 (PIL No. 129 of 2003) which laid down elaborate ‘Guidelines for Appointment and Availing Facility of Scribe’. In pertinent part, the guidelines read as follows:

The Scribe/writer should either be provided by the examining authority or be arranged by the candidate himself/herself at the discretion of the candidate.
It is desirable that the candidate and the scribe are from the same stream.
In case the candidate avails the services of his/her own scribe/writer, the scribe/writer should be one grade junior in academic qualification than the candidate if from the same stream. However, this condition shall not apply if the scribe/writer is from a different stream.
No other restrictions should be imposed on the selection of a scribe/writer.

P-PIL team submitted the petition and the research note to Justice N. N. Mathur, Vice Chancellor, National Law University (NLU-J) and Prof. Ranbir Singh, Vice Chancellor, NLUD. Fortunately, after much deliberation and media attention, the universities have announced a disabled friendly policy as per the legal norms outlined in our note. The examination rules for appointment of scribes notified by CLAT and NLUD can be accessed from here and here.

The petition submitted to NLU-J and NLUD and the research note can be accessed below:

Media

The Bar and Bench news article can be accessed here.

Missing Indian Sailors Aboard an Iranian Ship

A ship named “M/S Shab Row” flying the Iranian flag sank close to the coast of Iran (between Kish island and Bandar Linge). There were 3 Indian sailors on board this ship and they are suspected to have drowned. They are from very poor families in India and their names are as below:

Manoj Yadav (from Kolkata)
Dinesh Kumar (from Himachal Pradesh)
Pavan Kumar Choudhury (from Uttar Pradesh)

In an email dated 2nd November, 2011, Nejoum Al Bahar (owner of the ship) wrote to all its Indian agents that Shab Row had sank close to the coast of Iran on 27th October and that one body was recovered. Apparently there were 4 Iranians and 3 Indians on board this ship. They sent a photo of the body along with their email. This body was later identified to be that of Dinesh Kumar (from Palampur, Himachal Pradesh), one of the Indian seamen on board the ship.

Though two months have lapsed since the alleged sinking, Nejoum Al Bahar and its agents (in the UAE and India) insists that the ship is untraceable. It is very curious that despite the ship sinking almost 60 days back, there is absolutely no record of this (and no navigational warning that has been generated). The sinking of the ship has not been independently corroborated, apart from the statement by shipping company, Nejoum Al Bahar. We suspect that this might be a case of insurance fraud perpetuated by the owner of the ship. In any case, we need to locate Manoj Yadav and Pavan Kumar Choudhury, the other two Indian sailors on board the ship.

We are helping their families who are desperately trying to trace their loved ones. For more details on the matter please click here.

PIL Challenging the Constitutionality of the IPAB

The Division Bench of the Madras High Court had ordered the State Government and the Central Government to co-operate in relocating the IPAB to a new office with adequate space. The State Government came back with a proposal to relocate the IPAB at the TIDEL Park Building which had the required space. The proposed rent was pegged at about Rs. 15 lakhs per month. Apparently the Central Government found this to be too expensive and everything is back to square one.

It’s disappointing to see things moving so slowly. The Central Government just does not seem to understand the matters at issue. For example, a letter from the DIPP lays out the space requirements of the IPAB by comparing it with the norms for the Central Administrative Tribunal and not the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) which in reality are the only norms that are of some relevance. What’s the use of comparing it to the CAT? How does that make any sense?

As for the main question of constitutionality of the IPAB and Copyright Board, we have made zero progress. Some of the important pleadings and correspondence regarding the PIL, are available below:

(i) Counter-affidavits filed by the Central Government in response to the PILs against the IPAB and the Copyright Board;

(ii) The complete report filed by Justice Sridevan with the IPAB;

(iii) Letter sent to the ASG from the DIPP;

(iv) Letter sent to the DIPP to the IPAB; Annexure 1; Annexure 2 and Annexure 3;

(v) Letter from CPWD to the ASG;

(vi) Fair Rent Certificate.

For more details on the petition please click here.