The Supreme Court judgment in Vikash Kumar v. UPSC (“Vikash Kumar”) holding that an individual suffering from dysgraphia or writer’s cramp is entitled to a scribe in the Civil Services Examination (CSE) is a significant step towards affirming the position of persons with disabilities as rights bearers.
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The Court said that the government needs to shed its “fundamental fallacy” that only persons with a specific disability of 40 per cent or more should be provided with a scribe while taking examinations such as the Civil Services Examination. The bench led by Justice D Y Chandrachud held that this arbitrary prerequisite clearly violates the plain terms and object of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (RPwD) Act, 2016.
This case arose from the denial of services of a scribe to the petitioner, Vikash Kumar. Kumar has a disability commonly known as writer’s cramp. After having graduated with an MBBS degree from the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Post Graduate Medical Instruction and Research, he aspired to crack the UPSC exams.
While deciding the case, the bench opined that a scribe’s service is as per the statutory mandate to enable persons with disabilities to live a life of dignity and equality, based upon respect in society for their mental and bodily integrity. This will ensure that they are no longer treated as second-class citizens.
The Court opined that the higher threshold as a benchmark for disability could not be levied to deny equal access to persons with disabilities. The Court cited Jeeja Ghosh v. Union of India, wherein it was held that equality is not just limited to prevention of discrimination but also extends to a wide variety of positive rights, including “reasonable accommodation”.
In this context, the state has an obligation to provide persons with disabilities reasonable accommodation such as the facility of a scribe, compensatory time, etc., to secure substantive equality.
The Court endeavoured to translate “human dignity” enshrined in the Preamble into the legal regime for recognition and enforcement of rights of persons with disabilities when it said: “Part III of our Constitution does not explicitly include persons with disabilities within its protective fold. However, much like their able-bodied counterparts, the golden triangle of Articles 14, 19 and 21 applies with full force and vigour to the disabled.”
This judgment gave a befitting reply to the case of V Surendra Mohan v. State of Tamil Nadu (“Surendra Mohan”), in which the Supreme Court upheld the state’s policy of restricting the eligibility of blind and deaf candidates and refused to allow a visually disabled person from becoming a judge.
The apex court also directed the Centre to come up with norms and guidelines within three months to protect the rights of persons with disabilities to appear in the examinations with the help of scribes for the progressive realisation of the rights of disabled people, in tune with the RPwD Act of 2016.
The judgment in Vikash Kumar is progressive. It recognises that persons with disabilities could discharge their duties if reasonable accommodation is being provided to them by overruling the judgment of Surendra Mohan. There have been many examples from different countries in the world where judges with disabilities are effectively discharging their duties.
Justice Chandrachud himself said in a session organised by the Nyaya Forum of NALSAR University of Law that modern technology has enabled disabled persons so much so that there exists almost no difference today between them and the general population. He also said that we must have in due course the first judge of the Supreme Court who would be visually impaired.
In the judgment, Justice Chandrachud cautioned against perpetuating the negative imagery around disability: “When competent persons with disabilities are unable to realise their full potential due to the barriers posed in their path, our society suffers, as much, if not more, as do the disabled people involved. In their blooming and blossoming, we all bloom and blossom.”
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.