HC relief for blind engg entrance students

Visually-impaired students can now take the help of a reader or a lab assistant fully conversant with the subject while appearing for engineering entrance examinations, Harish V Nair reports.

Visually-impaired students can now take the help of a reader or a lab assistant fully conversant with the subject while appearing for engineering entrance examinations.

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The authorities were already providing such help but in many cases, the person assisting the candidates did not have much knowledge of the science stream.

The ruling from the Delhi High Court, which will will help lakhs of such candidates, came on a petition filed by one visually challenged class XII student, Kartik Sawhney.

He sought such assistance when he appears in the joint entrance examination scheduled for April 7, 2013.

“There is force in the submission made by Sawhney that blind candidates should be provided with scribe/reader/lab assistant for written examinations with science background as a person with commerce and humanities background will either not be in a position to identify, read out the question paper properly or explain the visual inputs to the blind candidates,” justice GS Sistani said.