“Regressive.” “Disgusting.”
Those are the words being used to describe the Supreme Court judgement
upholding a 50% disability limit in hearing and vision
disability for the post of a judicial officer. The ruling was given by a
two-member bench of Justice Ashok Bhushan and
Justice K M Joseph while hearing an appeal from a petitioner
who was held ineligible for the post of a civil judge because of a 70%
disability.
The bench ruled, “A judicial officer in a State has to possess reasonable
limit of the faculties of hearing, sight and speech in order to hear cases
and write judgments and, therefore, stipulating a limit of 50% disability in
hearing impairment or visual impairment as a condition to be eligible for the
post is a legitimate restriction i.e. fair, logical and reasonable.”
Disability rights advocate Nipun Malhotra says he will
challenge the ruling.
We have gone through the ruling in detail and we will be challenging and
demanding that a larger bench reverse the judgement. The ruling makes no
sense. Consider the fact that someone has overcome his or her disability to
become a legal luminary, then how does it make them incompetent to be a
judge? On what basis did the judges decide this? – Nipun Malhotra,
Disability rights advocate
Rahul Bajaj, who is studying law at Oxford
University and is a recipient of the prestigious Rhodes
Scholarship, says the order is “emblematic of the lack of awareness
about the capabilities of the disabilities that is prevalent in our society,
is based on unfounded assumptions and stereotypes and has the potential of
undoing the significant gains that our disability rights jurisprudence has
yielded in recent years.”
Bajaj should know. A visually impaired person himself, he has an outstanding
academic record and has broken many of these stereotypes in a series of
interviews with judges with disabilities from many countries.
“The question I would ask the learned judges who delivered this verdict: if
they went blind and were forced to resign on that ground, what would their
reaction be like? he asks.
The recent order comes a week after Bajaj moved an application in the Supreme
Court seeking to make India’s judicial infrastructure accessible for people
with disabilities. Following his application, the apex court asked high
courts and the SC registry to report their views on those directions. “It
also directed their Registrar General to work with us to address the
inaccessibility of SC website due to captchas. I am afraid it appears that
the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing,” adds Bajaj.
Bajaj is being represented by Advocate Jai Dehadrai, who has
also argued for Malhotra in many important accessibility-related cases,
including the ongoing petition to make Indian Sign Language official.
Dehadrai plans to represent Malhotra in this matter as well and says the
order ignores well established constitutional protections
extended to people with disabilities and that technological advancements
nullify the argument that people with visual or hearing impairments cannot
become judges.
“Ask any lawyer, and they will tell you of dozens of their own colleagues
that are teetering on the brink of complete blindness or rely upon hearing
aids due to age, but continue to participate robustly in the system of
justice….It is strange in this day and age that the Supreme Court would
pass a judgment which has the direct effect of demoralising an entire
community by choosing to focus more on traditional notions of
‘disability’ rather than paying attention to what these individuals can
do. This judgment will also make it harder for the disabled to shake-off the
societal perception that they are in some way less capable to participate in
the mainstream. Legally speaking, this judgment is contrary to what is
contained in Articles 14, 15 and 21 of our Constitution, which protects
against inequality and also specifically prohibits the State from
discriminating against its citizens.”
Compelling arguments that make the point in every way, legally and morally.
And given the court’s own progressive stance on many cases related to
accessibility and inclusion, this recent order does not look like it will
stand for long.
Source: https://newzhook.com/story/21160
