Chennai: A person, who was born with visual impairment and lost his hearing progressively, approached the Madras High Court which granted him interim relief, directing the University Grants Commission (UGC) to provide a Braille questionnaire for visually impaired candidates to write the National Eligibility Test (NET) on December 29.
Justice S. Vaidyanathan, at a special sitting on Friday, passed the interim order on a petition from Miranda Tomkinson.
“This court directs UGC to furnish Braille questionnaire to the petitioner and similarly placed persons and fulfill the other conditions mentioned in the office memorandum dated February 26, 2013 issued by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Department of Disability Affairs to enable them to take part in the examination, scheduled on December 29.
If the UGC is not going to provide this, it would amount to clear discrimination. The officials ought to have taken note of the difficulties of the disabled persons and should not have made them run from pillar to post as they are already helpless,” observed Justice Vaidyanathan.
The petitioner had completed two post-graduate degrees and will now appear for the NET, conducted by the UGC, to qualify as a lecturer. His repeated representations to the UGC for a Braille questionnaire had got him no response.
