The High Court quashed the arbitrary guidelines for disabilities appearing for Charted Accountant examination and set new guidelines and procedures

|

A writ petition was filed in public interest by the petitioner Mr. Subhash chandr Vashishth, who is also an advocate working for the rights of disabilities for quashing the arbitrary guidelines sent to the examinees with disabilities appearing for Charted Accountant examination from 02 May 2012 onwards. The examinees received the Admit Card and impugned writer guidelines on 26th April 2012, just days before the examination. The Guidelines and Procedure to be followed regarding granting of Writer/ Extra Time to the PWD candidateswere discriminatory and arbitrary and are against the settled norms of writer guidelines. The PWD Act doesn't put any such condition for scribes. And this amounts to discouraging the students with disabilities to appear for the exams. The ICAI earlier guidelines were not discriminatory though not very convenient. The examinees immediately contacted Mr. Somasekhar, additional Secretary (Exam) who told the candidates that he could not do anything since this is the decision of the Examination Committee taken during January 2012. The examinees then contacted the petitioner to help them resolve this issue so that they could appear in the examination with a proper writer as the examinees with disabilities fearing retribution from the Respondent do not want to come out in open against ICAI, The petitioner immediately filed a complaint before the Chief Commissioner- Disabilities on 27th April 2012 and sought an urgent intervention in view of the exam starting 3rd of May 2012 who, having verified the facts and the documents on record, immediately sent his order dated 30.04.2012 by email & Fax to then ICAI directing them to remove the unreasonable conditions for the writer to be used by candidates with disabilities and sought an action taken report by email/fax. The petitioner followed up with the ICAI, but they have neither given any assurance nor have withdrawn the impugned circular. Thereafter a petition was filed before the high court of delhi. The High court directed the ICAI to relax all three conditions namely, Writer to be not more than 20 years, Only one writer to write all exams and lastly that relative can not write the exams. The Hon ble court also verbally asked the media people present in the court to give wide coverage to this issue in national dailies so that it reaches all affected students and their families.