- (1.) The Judgment of the Court was as follows: 1. This writ petition has been filed through the Calcutta High Court Legal Services Committee.
(2.) Both the writ petitioners are minors and are siblings who are represented by their mother. The writ petitioners reside at village and Post Office - Kalabani, Police Station - Hura in the district of Purulia. The petitioner No. 1, Samiran Kaibarta was born in the year 1992. The petitioner No. 2, Chandana Kaibarta was born in the year 1993.
(3.) The brother and sister writ petitioners as also their three other sisters were all born blind. They hail from an extremely economically handicapped family, which is in dire need of financial help. Overcoming all odds, the writ petitioners not only pursued their studies, but also participated in extra-curricular activities such as annual sports conducted by the Blind Academy, Burdwan as also the West Bengal Government or State Athletics Meet for the Handicapped. The brother and sister duo, with a view to appear in the Madhyamik Pariksha conducted by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (hereinafter referred to as the said Board), registered themselves with the said Board and obtained their Registration Certificates on 15th September, 2007. Being visually impaired and differently abled, the writ petitioners were entitled to get help by means of appointment of "amanuensis" by the Board, whose primary function is to write answers in the Board examination on their behalf. It has been stated by the writ petitioners that application forms for that purpose had no restrictions earlier regarding appointment of amanuensis. However, the situation suddenly changed in the year 2008 and a specific clause was incorporated in the form which reads as follows: N.B.: The educational qualification of the proposed Amanuensis must not be higher than Class-IX. In paragraph 10 of the writ petition, it has been stated that they tried their best to get an amanuensis, qualified upto Class-IX, appointed in the little time which was available to them, but they totally failed in their efforts in view of the fact that they were residents of a distant village in Purulia and also in view of the fact that students qualified upto Class-IX were very reluctant to serve in the capacity of 'amanuensis' since those students found it very difficult to deal with specialized subjects, like Physical Science, Trigonometry, English, of which the syllabus of Class-X was more complex than what was taught to them in Class-IX.;