New Delhi: The Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud, has constituted a committee 'Supreme Court Committee on Accessibility' to conduct an audit of physical and functional access to the Supreme Court. The committee is headed by Justice S Ravindra Bhat. The committee is tasked with preparing and releasing a questionnaire of persons with disabilities, who visit the top court's premises and assess the nature and extent of the problems they face. Employees, litigants advocates and interns will be given the questionnaire.
Thereafter a report shall be prepared that would include the results of the accessibility audit, results of the survey of persons with disabilities and recommendations/proposals geared towards barriers to access. The committee is at liberty to carry out any other activity as well that can be required to conduct the accessibility audit.
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Other members of the committee include Dr Sanjay Jain, professor at National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, Shakti Mishra, librarian (nominated from SC), advocate V Sridhar Reddy (nominated by Supreme Court Bar Association), Nilesh Singit, Independent Accessibility Expert, nominated by the Centre for Disability Studies (NALSAR University of Law) and Ajay Agarwal, Additional Registrar of SC.
CJI DY Chandrachud has raised the issue of making the Supreme Court disabled-friendly many times in his speeches and hearings. His personal staff includes visually impaired people as well and many changes have been proposed in the Supreme Court to make the system disabled-friendly especially after most of the things have switched to online.
