The Supreme Court has severely chastised the National Testing Agency in its order in the case of a NEET aspirant who is suffering from dysgraphia. The SC, while admitting that it cannot conduct a re-exam for the student who was denied the right to be allotted an extra hour to complete her paper, pulled up the NTA for not taking the right measures to avoid such an incident, and for not having mechanisms in place to rectify such errors.
The court has asked the NTA to come up with a solution that can help the student who stands to lose a whole year otherwise. "The appellant has suffered injustice from wrongful denial, and lack of remedy from this court would result in irreparable injustice to the life of the student," said the bench led by Justice DY Chandrachud, adding that the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act will hold no meaning if it isn't 'scrupulously enforced'.
The NTA is required to find a way to help the student within a week, and file a status report with the court in two weeks' time. The court has also ordered the NTA to ensure that such incidents due to the organisation's negligence towards the rights of persons with disabilities shouldn't impede other students in the future. It also ordered the NTA to sensitise its staff on the needs and rights of disabled students.
It directed the testing agency to incorporate exhaustive details on the facilities available to students with disabilities during the exam. "The first respondent (the NTA) is governed by the rule of law and observing fairness; behind the abstract number of 15 lakh human lives which can be altered due to inadvertent yet significant errors," the court said.
