The Delhi High Court today directed the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) to prepare in six months a panel of scribes/writers in all major cities to be provided to all differently-abled persons on receipt of a written request from them.
A bench of Justice V K Jain directed ICAI to "either itself empanel appropriate persons to function as scribes/ writers or it may adopt the panel of scribes/ writers, if any, prepared by other universities/ institutions."
The court gave the directions in its judgement on a petition moved by one Reena Bhatia, a visually-impaired candidate pursuing Chartered Accountancy Course under the aegis of ICAI.
Reena had in her petition highlighted the problem faced by her in finding a scribe to write an examination and sought a direction to ICAI for framing guidelines for provising scribes to differently-abled candidates.
In its judgement, the bench also gave three months time to ICAI to prepare a schedule of charges to be paid to the scribes who assist differently-abled persons in the examination conducted by it or to pay the candidate who engages a scribe on his or her own as per the rates approved by it.
The bench, however, said ICAI would be free to amend its own guidelines so as to deny the facility of engaging private scribes/ writers to the candidates at the places where a panel of scribes/ writers is prepared by it provided one or more writers/ scribes from such panel are provided to the candidates.
"There shall be no restriction on change of scribes/ writers and it shall be open to the Superintendent/ In-charge of the examination centre to take an appropriate decision in this regard. This shall come into force forthwith," the bench said in its judgement.
It clarified the qualifications of the scribes/writers shall continue to be governed by existing guidelines.
