HYDERABAD: In a ray of hope for children of two government high schools for the blind in Dar-ul-Shifa and Malakpet, the Telangana high court on Tuesday set a deadline of three days for the state to fix problems of food, beds, toilets, sanitary napkins, braille books, etc., while ordering it to improve all other facilities within one month.
The direction came after a bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili went through the report of senior counsel L Ravi Chander who as amicus curiae visited both the boys’ school in Dar-ul-Shifa and girls’ school at Malakpet. The bench had appointed the amicus curiae after converting a media report into a PIL
The report was highly critical of the state’s neglect of the boys’ school where children were forced to live in classroom as it didn’t have a hostel. The hostel has been under construction for the past four years but nowhere near completion. Even the toilet was in dilapidated condition and located 300 meters away from the school, with boys struggling to reach it and injuring themselves in doing so, the report said.
“Imparting of any kind of education is almost absent here. Braille sheets are nowhere to be seen. There are no signs of any visits by doctors and no transport facility in case of any need to shift an ill child to hospital,” the report said.
Though the situation at the girls’ school in Malakpet was comparatively better, the hostel was in bad shape and utter neglect was visible in its management and food supply, the report said.
When state counsel Sanjeev Kumar said they had issued GOs to increase the budget for cosmetics for the blind girl students, the bench rebuked him and said the government was only good at issuing GOs and showing them to the court. “Forcing children to live in subhuman conditions amounts to cruelty towards them,” the bench said.
After the state counsel said they were ready to rectify all deficiencies, the bench gave him four weeks and sought an affidavit from the principal secretary on remedial steps. The case will come up on June 6.
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