DU told to give hostel seat to blind student

Coming to the rescue of a visually-impaired girl, the high court has told Delhi University (DU) to provide her the hostel facility till October next year to complete her PhD.

Coming to the rescue of a visually-impaired girl, the high court has told Delhi University (DU) to provide her the hostel facility till October next year to complete her PhD.

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The court has asked the hostel management to treat her as a student and not ask her to pay the hostel charges as a guest.

Allowing the plea of 100% visually impaired Kumud Rani Garg, a bench of justice Pardeep Nandrajog and justice Manmohan Singh said, "The petitioner (Garg) should be allocated a room within 3 days."

"We dispose of the petition issuing a mandamus to the university to re-allot the hostel seat to the petitioner and to charge from her the normal mess and residency charges which the university takes from other students and not the guest charges. The fee would not be charged for the duration she was not allowed to reside in the hostel," the bench said.

The court rejected the university's argument which said, "The university rules/ordinance has an outer limit of residency being six years with entitlement to be extended by six months upon special considerations."

"In the hostel, 3% seats are reserved for visually, hearing and physically impaired students under the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, and due to paucity of hostel facilities if anyone is extended the benefit beyond the tenure specified by the university rules and the ordinance, some other deserving case would be adversely affected," the university had argued.