Handicapped persons and the law: India
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Car parking
Mar 26 2015
Abhinav Garg
Reserve parking for disabled: HC
The Delhi high court ordered civic agencies to reserve space for the disabled in every parking space across the city and punish errant contractors and attendants. A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw said the agencies have till now only “paid lip service“ to several rules enacted to ensure access to the disabled and ordered them to “reserve parking spaces most suitable for persons with disability and in sufficient number after assessing the need.“
Indicating its seriousness, the HC directed the state gov ernment and its agencies to include a penalty clause in rules so that a parking attendant or contractor who doesn't reserve space for disabled is punished and the contract is cancelled immediately .
However, the court left it to the discretion of the three corporations, DDA, NDMC and the government to explore the number of reserved spaces to be kept for the disabled.
The HC, also explained what moved it to rule in favour of the rights of disabled: “Our own experience in Delhi shows that at several places though ramps have been provided to enable access to wheelchairs, they are there merely for namesake as the gradient is very steep. We want to draw the attention of all concerned agencies that they must standardize the gradient...We find the ramps to be inaccessible in certain places owing to the storm water drain on the sides of the roads which acts as a barrier between the road and the ramp leading to the pavement. All this comes in the way of optimum and intended use of our roads and pavements, with the same being congested, dusty , blocked, uneven and full of potholes, impeding movement.“
The court acted on a PIL by Vinod Kumar Bansal highlighting absence of parking space for the disabled and encroachment upon public land.Giving a series of directions, the HC directed traffic police to ensure within six months that auditory signals are installed at all traffic lights while other agencies were directed to ensure that all pavements are accessible to persons with disabilities.
Broadening the scope of its intervention the court also directed the Union home secretary and the Delhi chief secretary to inform it if a consultant, thinktank or expert can be roped in to suggest ways by which “Delhi can be turned into a world class city.“
The bench observed that the main reason for failure of governance was “continuance even today of schemes and policies of governance and administration, which were devised more than a century ago.“
“It is sad that despite expending huge funds and the best intention of the officials and employees, the city is not able to achieve the world class status which it aspires...We are sure that a competent consultant assigned the said task would be able to devise a structure for better governance of the city,“ the court said.
Dyslexic students
From the archives of The Times of India 2010
‘No calculator for dyslexic student’
SC Says CBSE Knows Best
Dhananjay Mahapatra | TNN
New Delhi: A class XII dyslexic student’s plea seeking to use a calculator for the March 22 mathematics paper did not yield the desired result in the Supreme Court on Friday.
Pranjay’s plea did not find favour with a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices Deepak Verma and C K Prasad. Not only he, but another 830 similarly challenged students appearing for their class X and XII boards will have to do without calculators.
In contrast, dyslexic students appearing in the ICSE class X and XII board would have the benefit of a calculator during the mathematics papers.
But, they need not despair or feel disadvantaged. For, CBSE counsel, senior advocate Bhaskar Gupta, told the Bench that the challenged students have been given four distinct concessions which should equip them to compete virtually on par with normal students.
The concessions are:
They can take a scribe with them to write the papers, though the person writing the papers would have to be studying in a class less than his They will be given an additional 60 minutes time for each paper The calculations need not be mandatorily worked out by the dyslexic student. Meaning thereby that the scribe can do it for him as the challenged student only tells him the process of working it out
All such students will be accommodated on the ground floor Appearing for Pranjay, who did well in his class X board under ICSE by scoring 92 in mathematics with the help of a calculator, senior advocate J L Gupta said there was a national policy for physically challenged which categorically says dyslexic students be allowed to use calculators in examinations.
The CBSE counsel said the national policy was of 2006 whereas the secondary board in 2009 had with the help of experts taken a decision to grant these four concessions to challenged students while categoricaly declining the aid of a calculator. This 2009 decision had never been challenged by any student.
But the Bench being satisfied with CBSE’s response declined to grant the benefit of use of calculator to Pranjay. “Once the CBSE thinks the permission to take help of a scribe and additional time of 60 minutes should offset the disadvantageous position of a dyslexic student, we cannot grant the benefit of use of calculator to a single student,” the Bench said refusing any interim relief.
Reservation in promotion
The Times of India Feb 28 2015
Dhananjay Mahapatra
`Disabled should get reservation in promotion'
The SC said the government could not deny quota in promotion to those appointed to a post under the reservation policy for the physically handicapped. A bench of Chief Justice H L Dattu and A K Sikri rejected the Union government's plea to set aside a HC decision ordering that those appointed in government service through physically handicapped quota would also be entitled to reservation while getting promoted.
Arguing for the Centre, attorney general Mukul Rohatgi said there were four categories of civil services and if a person had availed the reservation benefit in getting a job, it would be unfair to extend the reservation benefit again to him while considering him for promotion to the higher category of service.The bench was not convinced. It said, “Why confine the reservation benefit only to the entry level and not for promotion. If a person is disabled, he is always disabled. So, as long as the disability continues, he should get reservation benefits.“
No quota in promotion: SC
The Times of India, Sep 02 2015
AmitAnand Choudhary
SC: Differently abled can't claim quota in promotion
Differently abled persons can claim benefit of reservation in government jobs only at the time of appointment and cannot get the benefit of the affirmative policy in promotion, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday while clarifying its earlier verdict. A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and N V Ramana said the apex court's 2013 verdict did not hold that the reservation policy could also be extended to promotion in jobs and stressed that the disabled could claim benefits only at the time of recruitment.
The SC had in 2013 directed the Centre and all state governments to provide three per cent job reservation to disabled persons in all their departments, companies and institutions under Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act which came into force in 1995.
The Centre submitted that the court had not, while passing order for three percent reservation, dealt with the issue of reservation in promotion and the disabled could not be allowed to claim the benefits.
Although the Court had directed that all vacancies under 3% reservation be filled up within three months, the governments failed to comply with the order in the last two years and there are still 10,000 vacant posts in central government.Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar assured the court that all vacancies would be filled up by the end of this financial year.
The bench directed the government to take necessary steps for recruitment of disabled persons and asked it to honour the deadline set for complying with the 2013 order.
Disabled students in higher education
The Times of India Apr 06 2015
Only 0.6% of disabled students in higher edu
About 0.56% seats in higher education go to disabled candidates though there's reservation to the extent of 3% in public institutions. Of this 74.08% are male and 22.70% female. This came out in the third survey on the Status of Disability in Higher Education conducted by the National Centre for Promotion of Employment of Disabled People .
It includes responses from over 150 institutions of higher education across the country including 16 Indian Institutes of Technology and 13 Indian Institutes of Management, architecture, law, medicine, hotel management and other engineering and business schools.
The participation rate varies across disabilities. Of the total number of disabled candidates, 46.67% have ortho paedic disabilities, 32.13% are visually impaired, 5.16% are speechhearing impaired and 16.05% have other types. The percentage of students varies across streams as well the IIMs, surprisingly, come closest to completing the 3% quota with 2.49% disabled students of the total enrolled. Social work schools have an enrollment of 1.75% and IITs, 1.47%. The general universities are at the bottom with a 0.31% fill-rate. The total number of the students considered is 15,21,438.
Bipin Tiwari of Delhi University's Equal Opportunity Cell explains why it's difficult for universities even proactive ones to fill the quota.“There is a clear disconnect between schools and colleges.I don't know how many disabled children graduate from school every year. We try to spread awareness and enrollment is increasing. There are about 1,300 disabled students enrolled in DU right now,“ Tiwari said.
Of the 1,500-odd seats, about 700 are filled. The gender ratio is far healthier than the national average the survey furnishes about 60-40. The largest category in DU is not that of the orthopaedically-disabled but of the visually-impaired and the percentage of the hearing speech-impaired is far lower.
He explains that most students in this group come from special schools and prefer computer-based courses.“They are often advised at the special schools to take up vocational courses.“
Particular categories of the disabled tend to go for specific streams. For instance, 99% of the disabled in medicine are orthopaedicallly disabled; 57% of the disabled students in general science are blind and 62% in hotel management are in the other disability category (including learningmental disability).
The survey also found that over a 100 of the respondent institutions have a “disability unit“ on campus and over 130 have a “disability policy.“
Polygamy amongst disabled
The Times of India, May 22 2015
Polygamy among disabled as prevalent as among rest
Rema Nagarajan
A little under two-thirds of the disabled population in the 15-59 age group have been married or are married (including those widowed, separated and divorced) compared to nearly three-fourths of the same age-group in the population as a whole. The difference is largely due to the much lower proportion of those ever married in this age group among those who are mentally challenged (38%) and those with multiple disability (43%). The highest proportion of those married are those who are visually challenged and those with hearing impairment, 73% in each, which is equivalent to the proportion in the general population. Among those with mental illnesses too, the proportion is relatively low at just 53%. Interestingly, the pattern of a larger proportion of women than men being married in the 15-59 age group, which is seen in the general population, holds true even among persons with disabilities. Cutting across groups with various kinds of disabilities, there is a significantly higher proportion of married women than men, suggesting that polygamy is just as prevalent among the disabled as among the rest.
In the 60+ age group, in almost all categories of disabilities, the proportion of those ever married is over 95%, barring those with mental illnesses (86%) and those who are mentally challenged (79%).
While the problems faced by those with disabilities might be vastly different from the general population when it comes it matrimony , the patterns seem to be the same.However, disability rights groups would be quick to point out that the census count of just 26.8 million persons with disability , or 2.2% of the population, is indicative of undercounting since most international estimates say the proportion ought at least 4-6% . In this context, one can only guess what the status of those never even counted by the census must be when it comes to matrimony .
Legislative measures
The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2016
The Indian Express, December 16, 2016
Passed in Lok Sabha in December 2016
The bill had been originally moved in 2014 in Rajya Sabha by then Union minister Mallikarjun Kharge who is now Leader of Congress party in Lok Sabha.
The bill, which aims at securing and enhancing the rights and entitlements of disabled persons, also gives effect to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and related matters.
It provides for imprisonment of at least six months up to two years, along with a fine ranging between Rs 10,000 and Rs 5 lakh for discriminating against differently-abled persons.
Moving the bill for consideration and passage today, Gehlot said out of 82 recommendations made by the Parliamentary Standing Committee, 59 were accepted by the Government.
The bill, he said, has increased the number of categories of disabled persons to 21.
The Union Cabinet had earlier approved these amendments to the Rights of Persons With Disabilities (RPWD) Bill, 2014, that had replaced the 1995 Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act.
In the bill, disability has been defined based on an evolving and dynamic concept and the types of disabilities have been increased from existing seven to 21. The Centre will have the power to add more types of disabilities to it.
The types of disabilities now include mental illness, autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, chronic neurological conditions.
It also strengthens the office of chief commissioner and state commissioners for Persons with Disabilities which will act as regulatory bodies.
The bill was examined by the Parliamentary Standing Committee last year. Then, a Group of Ministers, headed by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, examined its provisions and sent their recommendations to the Prime Minister's Office.
Provisions
The salient features of the Bill are:
i. Disability has been defined based on an evolving and dynamic concept.
ii. The types of disabilities have been increased from existing 7 to 21 and the Central Government will have the power to add more types of disabilities. The 21 disabilities are given below:-
1. Blindness
2. Low-vision
3. Leprosy Cured persons
4. Hearing Impairment (deaf and hard of hearing)
5. Locomotor Disability
6. Dwarfism
7. Intellectual Disability
8. Mental Illness
9. Autism Spectrum Disorder
10. Cerebral Palsy
11. Muscular Dystrophy
12. Chronic Neurological conditions
13. Specific Learning Disabilities
14. Multiple Sclerosis
15. Speech and Language disability
16. Thalassemia
17. Hemophilia
18. Sickle Cell disease
19. Multiple Disabilities including deafblindness
20. Acid Attack victim
21. Parkinson's disease
iii. Speech and Language Disability and Specific Learning Disability have been added for the first time. Acid Attack Victims have been included. Dwarfism, muscular dystrophy have has been indicated as separate class of specified disability. The New categories of disabilities also included three blood disorders, Thalassemia, Hemophilia and Sickle Cell disease.
iv. In addition, the Government has been authorized to notify any other category of specified disability.
v. Responsibility has been cast upon the appropriate governments to take effective measures to ensure that the persons with disabilities enjoy their rights equally with others.
vi. Additional benefits such as reservation in higher education, government jobs, reservation in allocation of land, poverty alleviation schemes etc. have been provided for persons with benchmark disabilities and those with high support needs.
vii. Every child with benchmark disability between the age group of 6 and 18 years shall have the right to free education.
viii. Government funded educational institutions as well as the government recognized institutions will have to provide inclusive education to the children with disabilities.
ix. For strengthening the Prime Minister's Accessible India Campaign, stress has been given to ensure accessibility in public buildings (both Government and private) in a prescribed time-frame.
x. Reservation in vacancies in government establishments has been increased from 3% to 4% for certain persons or class of persons with benchmark disability.
xi. The Bill provides for grant of guardianship by District Court under which there will be joint decision – making between the guardian and the persons with disabilities.
xii. Broad based Central & State Advisory Boards on Disability are to be set up to serve as apex policy making bodies at the Central and State level.
xiii. Office of Chief Commissioner of Persons with Disabilities has been strengthened who will now be assisted by 2 Commissioners and an Advisory Committee comprising of not more than 11 members drawn from experts in various disabilities.
xiv. Similarly, the office of State Commissioners of Disabilities has been strengthened who will be assisted by an Advisory Committee comprising of not more than 5 members drawn from experts in various disabilities.
xv. The Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities and the State Commissioners will act as regulatory bodies and Grievance Redressal agencies and also monitor implementation of the Act.
xvi. District level committees will be constituted by the State Governments to address local concerns of PwDs. Details of their constitution and the functions of such committees would be prescribed by the State Governments in the rules.
xvii. Creation of National and State Fund will be created to provide financial support to the persons with disabilities. The existing National Fund for Persons with Disabilities and the Trust Fund for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities will be subsumed with the National Fund.
xviii. The Bill provides for penalties for offences committed against persons with disabilities and also violation of the provisions of the new law.
xix. Special Courts will be designated in each district to handle cases concerning violation of rights of PwDs.
3. The New Act will bring our law in line with the United National Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), to which India is a signatory. This will fulfill the obligations on the part of India in terms of UNCRD. Further, the new law will not only enhance the Rights and Entitlements of Divyangjan but also provide effective mechanism for ensuring their empowerment and true inclusion into the Society in a satisfactory manner.
