Person with disability suffering from Writer's cramp, is entitled to a Scribe for examination

To confine the facility of scribe only to those who have benchmark disabilities would be to deprive the class of persons of their statutorily recognized entitlements.

The grievance of the citizen who suffers from a writer’s cramp is that he was denied a scribe in the civil services’ examination. Appellant declared himself to be a person with a benchmark disability of 40% or more. Union Public Services Commission rejected the request on the ground that a scribe could be provided only to blind candidates and candidates with a locomotor disability or cerebral palsy with impairment of at least 40% and the appellant did not meet this criterion.

Supreme Court in its judgment held that Failure to meet the individual needs of every disabled person will breach the norm of reasonable accommodation. Flexibility in answering individual needs and requirements is essential to reasonable accommodation. The principle of reasonable accommodation must also account for the fact that disability-based discrimination is intersectional. Reasonable accommodation cannot be construed in a way that denies to each disabled person the customization she seeks.

In the present case condition of the candidate has been repeatedly affirmed by several medical authorities including the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore and AIIMS. The AIIMS report which was according to the order of the Supreme Court is clear in opining that the appellant has a specified disability since he has a chronic neurological condition. The writer's cramp has been found successively to be a condition which the appellant has, making it difficult for him to write a conventional examination. To deny the facility of a scribe in a situation such as the present would negate the valuable rights and entitlements which are recognized by law.

Direction issued by Supreme Court to the Union Government in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to ensure the framing of proper guidelines which would regulate and facilitate the grant of a facility of a scribe to persons with disability within the meaning of S. 2(s) where the nature of the disability operates to impose a barrier to the candidate writing an examination.