T Chakkaravarthy lost his vision when he was a toddler, but he never lost sight of his dream. On June 1, he created a judicial history by probably becoming the first visually impaired judicial officer in Tamil Nadu to hold court.
In March 2009, when the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) included him in the list of 180-odd candidates for the subordinate judiciary, Chakkaravarthy's 17-year dream to enter the judicial service was realised. Born at Thimiri village near Arcot in Vellore district, this 41-year-old lost his eye sight at four, when he was down with small pox. He is now the proud occupant of III additional district munsif's chair in Coimbatore.
On his first independent day in court on Monday, Chakkaravarthy heard cases on his own. Though he said he had struggled a lot to reach the position, and indicated that he might require the services of an assistant, he did not wish to elaborate on that. He said that being a judicial officer he would require permission from the High Court Registry to speak about himself and other related issues. Perhaps to assist him in his work, Chakkaravarthy's wife Thilaka is studying LLB now.
"This candidate did not require any special arrangements during his training and induction programme," said S Vimala, district judge and former director of the Tamil Nadu State Judicial Academy. Noting that Chakkaravarthy had cleared all requirements before his selection, Vimala said chief justice HL Gokhale met him during the induction training and assured him of the higher judiciary's all moral support to him.
The issue of visually impaired persons seeking to break into the judiciary is not new in Tamil Nadu. In 2003, authorities rejected a visually disabled candidate's application for a subordinate judiciary post. He had to file a writ petition seeking a direction to the authorities to permit him to write the examination. Though he managed to be short-listed from out of thousands of aspirants, the candidate stumbled at the interview stage, said a jurist who argued for the candidate.
The case, however, had triggered a serious debate on the issue, with questions such as what is handicap?' Referring to the half a dozen outstation judges, who were on transfer from other states, the jurist had argued that language was a barrier/handicap to those judges, and that they had to take the help of either a co-judge or the court staff for translation or interpretation.
When the bench, headed by justice Jayasimha Babu, asked as to how would the disabled person look into the eyes of the accused and assess the demeanour, the jurist argued that it was an old technique as "looks are deceptive nowadays." The bench relented finally and allowed him to write the examinations.
The jurist had also to point out the fact that justice Zakeria Mohammed Zak Yacoob became judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa despite his blindness. In West Bengal, Sadhan Gupta was made advocate general in 1986-87 though he too was visually impaired.
The district munsif only needs to listen to chief examination and cross-examination before dictating his verdict to a steno, he said
