Chennai: Soon the corridors of the judiciary, including the Madras high court, would become a disabled friendly. The Madras high court has directed the authorities, including the Registrar General of Madras HC, to take steps to obtain an expert opinion to enable courts in Tamil Nadu turn disabled friendly. The court has also directed the authorities to submit the report when the high court re-opens after the vacation.
The first bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar passed the direction when a PIL filed by an advocate L. Muruganantham came up for hearing on Friday.
Muruganantham submitted differently-abled person's face difficulties as most of the courts and its buildings in the state are not accessible to them. “This is a clear violation of their fundamental rights”, he said.
Even elders also face difficulties since the guidelines were not followed while creating ramps. People have difficulty reaching floors higher than the ground floor, resulting in mental agony, humiliation and emotional trauma, which amount to violence to their human dignity and fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution.
Muruganantham sent a representation on October 15, 2016, to all the authorities, including the Registrar General of Madras HC to provide accessibility as per the Standards and Specifications prescribed in “Hand Book on Barrier Free and Accessibility” published by the CPWD.
He sought a direction to the authorities, including the chief secretary, secretary to public works department and others to fix the minimum time period to provide ramps with gradient 1:20 and minimum standard width of 1800 mm accessible to all places in the courts.
When the matter came up for hearing the first bench said it has directed the authorities to take steps to obtain expert opinion to make the courts more disabled friendly by providing for interpreters, who might be proficient in the use of sign language for hearing impaired, for conversion of documents in the Braille for the visually impaired and other measures apart from providing ramps and other facilities for the orthopedically disabled. “The report shall be submitted when the court re-opens after the ensuing summer vacation 2017”, the bench said.
