NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Thursday made it clear that it is the responsibility of the Delhi University (DU) to make available writers for visually impaired students or else the process of online Open Book Examinations (OBE) for final year undergraduate courses would be a ‘mockery’ for them.
A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad directed DU to clarify the position on arrangement of scribes at CSE Centres and elsewhere for students in visually impaired (VH) category by the next date of hearing on August 5, to enable them to participate in the online OBE.
While the varsity maintained that scribes will be available to visually impaired students by the CSE Centres, which have been set up to provide services to students who do not have infrastructure to give OBE, the CEO of CSE Academy clarified that it was not their duty to arrange for scribes and they do not have such writers at the centres.
“There is complete mismatch of statements made by the two sides. There is complete contradiction. Why are you (DU) giving wrong hope to students that everything is available at CSE centres,” said the bench.
The bench added “It is the responsibility of the university to make scribes available for VH students. Otherwise, the whole process of conducting OBE online examinations would be a mockery.”
Senior advocate Sachin Dutta, representing DU, said it was not mandatory for students to appear in online OBE and they can give the physical exams later in September.
To this, the bench said the varsity was closing the right of students on persons with disability category to appear through the online mode by not providing them proper facilities including scribes.
(With PTI inputs)