Latest News | HC Rejects Plea from Visually Impaired to Treat Them on Par with Other Differently Abled Persons

Chennai, Sep 20 (PTI) The Madras High Court has rejected a plea to treat the visually impaired on par with other differently abled persons and pay them Rs 1,500 towards maintenance allowance.

Presently, the visually impaired are being paid the allowance ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 depending upon their educational qualification. They want the same to be enhanced to Rs 1,500.

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It is not in dispute that the differently abled persons, who are visually impaired, are entitled to public employment and private employment as well.

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Therefore, they cannot be equated with the differently abled persons, who are ineligible to get any employment on account of sickness and infirmity suffered by them.

The basis adopted by the authorities to treat them differently cannot be faulted, the first bench of Acting Chief Justice M Duraiswamy and Justice Sunder Mohan said on Monday.

"Therefore, we are of the view that we cannot direct the respondents to treat all the differently abled persons under visually impaired category on par with differently abled persons, who are incapable of any employment," the bench said.

The bench, however, observed that in view of the submission of the petitioner's counsel that certain persons, who are visually impaired, are also ineligible for employment on account of other sickness, infirmity and old age, the authorities concerned may consider the request of those persons to treat them on par with other differently abled persons, who are getting the higher monthly maintenance allowance, on merits and in accordance with law.

The bench was disposing of a PIL petition filed in 2018 by Nethrodhaya, by its founder-trustee C Govindakrishnan.

According to petitioner, the State Commissioner for Persons with Disability provides maintenance allowance of Rs 1,500 to several differently abled persons including those suffering from leprosy and muscular dystrophy. But the visually impaired persons, who are also severely disabled, are not treated on par with the other severely disabled persons and are paid only a maximum of Rs 1,000 as monthly pension.

Further, they are subjected to extreme hardship because the scheme is being administered by the Social Welfare department. They are asked to obtain certificates of approval from the Village Administrative Officers (VAOs), Revenue Inspectors and Tahsildars to avail the benefits under this scheme.

Whereas, the other differently abled persons, whose maintenance allowance is handled by the Differently Abled Department, are not put to such hardship, petitioner pointed out.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)