The Supreme Court has made it clear—equal access to legal education begins at the entrance gate. Extending its earlier directions on the All India Bar Examination (AIBE), the Court has now ruled that visually impaired candidates appearing in the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) must be given a full suite of assistive technologies.
This includes screen readers like JAWS and NVDA, permission to use personal keyboards and customised devices, as well as the freedom to choose between typing answers on a computer or relying on a scribe. The Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said the same safeguards that opened AIBE to visually impaired candidates will now apply mutatis mutandis to CLAT.
Fresh guidelines issued on August 1 were brought to the Court’s notice, and it was directed that both the Bar Council of India and the CLAT Consortium strictly comply. Importantly, the Court underlined that these measures must come at no cost to the candidates.
The judicial push towards inclusivity began in December 2024, when the Court first ordered the Bar Council to ensure visually impaired aspirants could meaningfully participate in professional examinations. At that time, it went beyond merely approving scribes—explicitly mandating equal digital access, early software installation, and safeguards against scribe misuse by requiring them to be from non-law, non-humanities backgrounds with qualifications below the candidate’s own.
The petition, filed by visually impaired law students, sought nothing less than parity in access to national-level examinations. With the Supreme Court’s latest order, the doors to legal education—and the profession itself—are being reshaped to open wider.
The matter will come up again on November 13, when the Court will review how well its directions are being implemented.
