SC Grants UPSC One Week To Detail Plan for Screen-Reader Access In Exams
Supreme Court gives UPSC one week to submit affidavit on screen-reader facility for visually-impaired exam candidates.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday granted a week to the UPSC to file its compliance affidavit on the proposed plan of action, timeline and modalities for the deployment and use of screen-reader software for visually-impaired candidates in examinations conducted by the commission.
The apex court had on December 3 last year directed the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to incorporate in the notification for examinations a provision allowing eligible candidates to request a change of scribe till at least seven days before the test.
The top court had also asked the UPSC to file within two months a comprehensive compliance affidavit "clearly delineating the proposed plan of action, timeline, and modalities for the deployment and use of screen reader software for visually impaired candidates in the examinations to be conducted by it."
It had said the affidavit shall also specify the steps proposed for the testing, standardisation and validation of the software and related infrastructure across all centres or at the designated examination centres. The top court had said the affidavit shall also indicate the feasibility of ensuring that the said facility was made operational and available to all eligible candidates from the next cycle of examinations. The matter came up for hearing on Monday before a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta.
"We are completely complying with it (directions). We just require a period of one week to place the compliance affidavit on record," the counsel appearing for the UPSC said. The bench granted one week to the UPSC to file the compliance affidavit in terms of its December 3 order and posted the matter for hearing on February 23. In its December 2025 order, the top court said that the rights guaranteed to differently-abled people were not acts of benevolence, but expressions of the constitutional promise of equality, dignity and non-discrimination.
It had delivered its verdict on a plea filed by Mission Accessibility, an organisation engaged in the advancement of the rights of differently-abled individuals, seeking a modification in the timeline for scribe registration in the Civil Services Examination conducted by the UPSC. The plea had also sought a direction to allow the use of laptops equipped with screen-reader software, along with accessible digital question papers, for eligible candidates.
In its verdict, the top court directed that the UPSC shall "ensure that in every notification for the examinations conducted by it, a clear provision is incorporated permitting candidates eligible for a scribe to request a change of the scribe up to at least seven days before the date of the examination." It said that such requests should be objectively considered and disposed of by a reasoned order within three working days of the receipt of the applications.
The top court had also directed that the UPSC shall, in coordination with the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities and the National Institute for the Empowerment of Persons with Visual Disabilities, formulate uniform guidelines and protocols for the use of screen-reader software and other assistive technologies to ensure standardisation, accessibility and security of the examination process.
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