The High Court of Bombay at Goa on Wednes day indicated that it may expand the scope of an on going public interest litiga tion (PIL) writ petition to undertake a wider review of Goa’s policies and legal compliance concerning persons with disabilities. In its order, the division bench comprising Justic es Valmiki Menezes and Hiten S Venegavkar ob served that after hearing all parties, it may enlarge the three writ petitions to examine the standards and parameters prescribed un der the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, the Motor Vehicles Act and Rules, as well as the pol icies of the State govern ment and Corporations’ towards persons with dis abilities. The court while hearing the PIL writ petition filed by Harish M Parab granted permission to implead the Director of Transport and the Union of India as addi tional respondents in the matter.
The observation signals that the case could go be yond the petitioner’s in dividual grievances and evolve into a broader judi cial review of accessibility, transport regulations and disability-related govern ance in the State. The State government, the Kadamba Transport Corporation Limited (KTCL), the State Commis sion for Persons With Dis abilities, the Directorate of Social Welfare and the Department of Empower ment of Persons with disabilities are the respond- ents.
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The petition had crit- icised the KTCL for its lack of disability-friendly vehicles catering to pas-sengers with physical and visual impairments. How- ever, during the hearing the High Court pushed for a more comprehensive in- tervention.”We want to widen the scope of this petition be- cause we feel that your reliefs are a little narrow,” the High Court remarked, emphasising that the case should cover all 21 cate- gories of disabilities rec- ognised by law rather than restrict its focus to just a few conditions. The Court has posted the matter for further consid- eration on August 19
