Don't Confine Scribes To Benchmark Disabilities: Supreme Court To CLAT Consortium

The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard a plea challenging stringent conditions imposed by CLAT consortium on persons with disabilities intending to avail scribes. The matter was heard by a bench comprising CJI DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha. 

At the outset, the petitioner, a disability rights activist, submitted that the consortium was only providing the services of a scribe to people with benchmark disabilities. He submitted that this was against the Supreme Court's judgement in Vikash Kumar v. Union Public Service Commission. While referring to the policy of only providing scribes to people with benchmark disabilities as "exclusionary", the petitioner also stated that the consortium was only permitting scribes who had not yet graduated 11th standard. He said–

"The scribe should be one step below. So he can be a 12th student. Another thing, they're saying scribe cannot take coaching class. Everyone in 12th is taking coaching class."

CJI DY Chandrachud, while stating that scribes should be granted to people who may not have benchmark disabilities expressed, that a scribe could not be someone who had finished his 12th standard. He stated that–

"Benchmark disability is only for reservations, not for the specially abled to get a scribe for an exam...For appearing for CLAT you have to pass minimum 12th standard. So the qualification of scribe should not be a 12th pass. Normally people who appear for CLAT are all 12th pass. So where the examinee is a 12th pass, the scribe should not have cleared 12th standard or above. We cannot say that if the examinee is a 3rd year BA, the scribe can be a 2nd year."

Per contra, the respondent stated that they were granting scribes to anyone who had a writing disability and that the circumstances of the present case were different than that of Vikash Kumar as unlike the UPSC exam, CLAT consisted of 100% multiple choice questions. He added that the subjects in CLAT (English, General Knowledge, Math, Logical Reasoning and Legal Reasoning) were such that all 10th standard students were familiar with.

The third issue raised by the petitioner was regarding certification of disability. He stated that any existing disability certificate should be considered and if later there was fraud, it could be dealt with separately. The respondent submitted that the certification was a ministry's certification and that the respondent could not do much regarding the same. He said–

"The second condition is that I must have a writing impairment which is certified by a body. The ministry has stipulated the body. My difficulty is that the ministry wants a particular certificate."

The bench decided to not pass an order on the issue today. CJI DY Chandrachud said to the respondent–

"Don't confine it to benchmark disabilities. You have to make it simple. Come back to us with a small statement. Respond to these grievances. Tell us that these are the steps we took to comply with Vikash Kumar...Tomorrow, ask Ms. Aishwarya Bhati to remain in court. We'll ask her to take instructions from the Ministry regarding the certification."

CASE TITLE: Arnab Roy v. Consortium of NLU And Anr. WP(C) No. 1109/2022

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