At a time when the governments are making efforts to facilitate disabled persons, a visually impaired youth was not only denied entry at CTET examination in Shimla on Thursday allegedly on illegal grounds but the staff at the exam center allegedly misbehaved with him.
The visually impaired youth with 50 percent disability, Ravi Kant who is a resident of Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh said he was to appear in the CTET examination at an examination centre at Panthaghati in Shimla.
He was accompanied by a scribe as per the guidelines of CBSE, the nodal agency for conducting a CTET examination. But he was denied entry in the examination center on the grounds that the scribe was having qualifications equal to the candidate.
He stated that as per the public notice on the CBSE website, the rules notified by the Central government on 26th February 2013 would be applicable for engaging scribes for visually impaired candidates.
The 2013 rules are very clear in this regard and as per these rules, no criteria of educational qualification should be fixed. It means a person with similar or higher qualifications can become a scribe for visually impaired or the eligible disabled candidates, he added.
HP State Advisory Board on Disability expert member and chairman of Umang Foundation, Ajai Srivastava said he tried to contact the examination centre staff but no one picked the call.
“Then I asked Ravi Kant to get me connected with invigilators over his mobile. But they refused to entertain his request. Its a violation of visually impaired persons’ rights.
Now, he would file a PIL in the High Court to seek justice for visually impaired candidates,” he added.