The Delhi High Court Wednesday guided Delhi University to give scholars to visually impaired students at common service centers (CSCs) for online Open Book Examinations (OBE) for final year college classes, in the event that they have decided on one.
The high court additionally said the DU will guarantee that no such understudy is denied of a scribe at the CSC if the varsity has been educated ahead of time.
The CSCs have been set up for those understudies who don’t have the foundation to show up for the OBE.
At least two reading material or textbooks of each paper to the visually handicapped students and granted one week’s time to the students to make the request the DU, as per Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad in the hearing via video conferencing.
Senior advocate S K Rungta, representing the National Federation of the Blind, has graciously agreed to provide assistive devices to the visually impaired students. The court recorded that DU will give provisional admission to students in its postgraduate courses, subject to clearing the entrance exam.
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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.
The court requested that the varsity to guarantee that advanced endorsements/results are sent to understudies through email with the goal that understudies need not go to the school.
The high court was hearing requests by law understudy Prateek Sharma and National Federation of Blind trying to set up successful components for visually impaired and specially-abled students with the goal that instructive directions can be communicated to them appropriately and training material is given to them through online method of educating during the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the conference, Rungta said OBE is out of inquiry for visually impaired students without understanding material.
One of the professors of DU, who is looking into the issues faced by students of persons with disability (PwD) category, said visually impaired students get the material converted on their own. He said the university cannot prepare in one week’s time or a month’s time and they cannot buy the devices and they have no funding. To this, the bench said these are extraordinary times. Don’t throw the rule book on the students.
Sachin Dutta, representing the DU said the university never provided reading material to students and they only prescribed books and it backfired You never had OBE also. There has never been a pandemic like this in the world. This surely answers you. If you point one finger on them, four fingers will be pointed at you.” The court had earlier made it clear that it was the DU’s responsibility to make available scribes for visually impaired students or else the process of online OBE would be a “mockery” for them.
It had earlier questioned the DU of its lack of preparedness and facilities, including the arrangement of scribes and CSE Centers, for differently-abled students to enable them to appear in the online OBE.
