In A Historic First, Lawyer With Visual Impairment Clears Supreme Court's Advocate-on-Record Exam
In a historic first, N Visakamurthy, an advocate and a person with a visual impairment, has successfully cleared the December 2022 Advocates-on-Record (AoR) Examination conducted by the Supreme Court. This is the first time in the history of the apex court that a candidate with a visual impairment has attempted the examination with the help of a scribe and has been successful in...
In a historic first, N Visakamurthy, an advocate and a person with a visual impairment, has successfully cleared the December 2022 Advocates-on-Record (AoR) Examination conducted by the Supreme Court. This is the first time in the history of the apex court that a candidate with a visual impairment has attempted the examination with the help of a scribe and has been successful in their endeavour. The advocate has also managed this feat on his first try.
In conversation with LiveLaw, Visakamurthy said, “I would like to especially thank the Chief Justice of India, the Registrar-General of the Supreme Court, the Attorney-General for India, and the Secretary of the Department of Legal Affairs for their continued support. They helped me a lot.” However, the advocate also pointed out some lacunae in the existing testing infrastructure, particularly the nature of the questions that candidates had to answer. “The pattern is not suitable for persons with visual impairment, especially Paper II (drafting) and Paper IV (leading cases). Paper IV, for instance, is an open-book examination. But, they would only allow me to get a scribe with a 'plus two' (higher secondary) qualification. Although my scribe was incredibly patient and helpful, someone without any legal knowledge would have difficulty understanding the question and identifying relevant portions in the book. Because of this, instead of an open-book examination, it becomes a closed-book examination for a person with any visual impairment. Similarly, in Paper II, it was very difficult to explain the format to someone without any knowledge of law or drafting,” the advocate said.
Besides this, Visakamurthy also revealed that candidates with visual impairment were granted only an additional hour, despite the requirement of having to attempt the same papers as persons without such disabilities. His request for special correction was also rejected. Despite the systemic and structural difficulties he faced in attempting the AoR examination, Visakamurthy was all praise for his scribe, Semmozhi. “She was wonderful and said nothing bad even though the young girl had to write four law papers and spend more than sixteen hours in the process in total,” he said.
In the end, he expressed the hope that in the future, candidates with visual impairments may be allowed to take the examination with law students acting as their scribes. He explained, “We were asked to take the examination in a separate room and were being supervised by multiple people, to ensure that only what a candidate said was written by their scribe. There is no question of cheating under these circumstances.” If law students with a basic familiarity with legal jargon and concepts were allowed to write the examination, Visakamurthy said, more candidates with visual impairments would come forward to apply for the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record examination. “There has been no one before me, but there will be more after,” Visakamurthy said with great conviction.
Visakamurthy had raised these concerns in a writ petition before the top court last year. In his petition, the advocate had, inter alia, prayed for the framing of appropriate guidelines for persons with visual impairments to write the AoR examination considering the existing guidelines framed by different examination agencies. Visakamurthy is a practising advocate with visual impairment. After clearing the Civil Services Examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) in 2018, he was appointed as an assistant government advocate (AGA) in the central agency section of the apex court. The said post was identified by the union government as suitable, in view of his visual impairment, and as per the mandate of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. However, he was not permitted to join the service on account of his disability and was eventually reassigned to the post of an assistant legal advisor at Shastri Bhawan. During this time, he wrote more than 500 opinions providing legal advice to various ministries. He was finally allowed to join the central agency section in 2021 after he filed an application before the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities. In the course of his service, he also learned that the Department of Legal Affairs, Ministry of Justice had been stalling his regularisation citing the ground that he had not yet become an Advocate-on-Record, as per a condition requiring AGAs to qualify the AoR examination within a period of two years.
Against this backdrop, last year in December, Visakamurthy had moved the top court seeking, among other things, the framing of guidelines for visually impaired candidates. When the petition was mentioned before a bench headed by CJI DY Chandrachud, the chief justice had categorically stated that clearance would not be granted for the petitioner to have a lawyer as a scribe but assured him that he would pass administrative orders allowing him to employ the services of a different scribe. Not only did he urge the top court to frame appropriate guidelines, but also challenged the ministry’s condition requiring officers with disability in the AGA service cadre to pass the AoR examination within two years and highlighted the inherent ableism in the structure of the qualifying examination. He also pointed out that having a scribe without any legal knowledge would increase the likelihood of errors and erode the quality of answers. This was because a visually impaired candidate was largely reliant on the scribe to, for instance, respond successfully to descriptive-type questions or identify relevant portions of the head notes provided in the fourth paper on leading cases. “The structure of the examination does not offer a visually impaired examinee an equal playing field,” Visakamurthy had alleged.
Visakamurthy decided to ultimately confine his petition to the following prayer which has been reproduced in full:
“Frame appropriate guidelines for a visually challenged person to write AoR examination considering the existing guidelines framed by the different examination agency: (a) Scribe qualification (b) Extra or more time (c)Separate room (d) Visually challenged person papers should be sent to the examiner separately as per CBSE guidelines (e) Alternative method of examination-oral-objective.”
In December, a bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Abhay Oka disposed of the petition without issuing any particular guidelines, but with a direction to the respondent (Supreme Court of India) to examine the prayer and communicate a decision as early as possible “to facilitate the petitioner, if possible, to take the examination”. The AoR examination commenced later that month.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday announced that the next Advocates-on-Record examination will be held in New Delhi on June 12, 13, 14, and 15. Under Rules 5(i) and 5(ii) of Order IV of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013 and Regulation 2 of the Regulations regarding Advocates-on-Record Examination made under the said rules, the top court has invited applications from eligible advocates to participate in the upcoming examination. However, it is important to note that no separate guidelines have been issued in respect of persons with disabilities.