New Delhi: Having lost his vision when he was in Class 10, 48-year-old N. Visakhamurthy from Chennai knows the obstacles faced by his ilk. In a historic moment, Visakhamurthy became the first visually impaired lawyer to clear the Supreme Court’s Advocate on Record (AoR) examination this year.
“I took this as a challenge that in the future, people like me should not be afraid of this exam. That was my ulterior motive. There’s nothing you cannot clear in one shot. I cleared it with the help of a Class 12 girl,” he told ThePrint, referring to Semmozhi who wrote on his behalf in the exam.
A patient of Retinitis Pigmentosa with Macular degeneration, this first-generation lawyer is among the 260 lawyers who passed the exam held in December 2022, the result of which came out on 18 April.
Semmozhi, too, had her own challenges. Suffering from a spinal condition called Scoliosis, the 18-year-old first-year student of Delhi’s St. Stephen’s College volunteered to help Visakhamurthy as she was looking to take up such kind of writing tasks and didn’t mind skipping a few days from the college.
The apex court conducts the annual AoR exam under Order IV of Supreme Court Rules, 2013 to test the knowledge and skills of an advocate, who after clearing the tests becomes eligible to represent clients in the apex court.
According to the rules, no advocate other than an AoR can file an appearance or act for a party in the SC. Advocates other than those who have become AoR can also practice in the SC, but need instruction or approval in an AoR’s name to file an appearance in a case before the SC.
Visakhamurthy scored 81 in Paper 1: Practice and Procedures, 60 in Paper 2: Drafting, 61 in Paper 3: Advocacy and Professional Ethics, and 60 in Paper 4: Leading Cases.
Crediting his parents’ blessings for the feat, the lawyer said this did not come easy. “I had to fight for everything in the Supreme Court.”
His biggest fight was to get a scribe with an undergraduate or a postgraduate degree. Ahead of his AoR exams, Visakhamurthy filed a writ petition on 8 December urging the Supreme Court to frame guidelines for persons with visual impairments to take the exam.
The bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Abhay Oka disposed of his petition on 12 December with a direction to the top court to examine the prayer and communicate a decision as early as possible so that Visakhamurthy was able to sit for the examination.
Following this, Visakhamurthy requested the court to allow him a scribe with the qualification of a postgraduate degree, but that was rejected. Subsequently, he suggested a scribe with at least an undergraduate qualification, which too was turned down and he was instead provided with Semmozhi.
Explaining the reason for the rejections, Visakhamurthy, said, he was informed by the SC that the basic degree for AoR exam is Bachelors in Law and one step below is only Class 12. “Therefore, if we have to provide a scribe, we will provide one with Class 12 qualification or you can suggest any Class 12 completed person,” he was informed.
That’s how he met Semmozhi, he told ThePrint. “With that difficulty, I managed to clear this AoR exam for the first time. I don’t know how I managed it, maybe because of my parents’ blessing.”
The exam day
On the day of the exam, Visakhamurthy and Semmozhi were provided with a separate room and were watched by the Registrar of the Supreme Court and his assistant. An additional hour was provided to them in all four papers, which were 3-hour long.
But even here, the challenge was different for him. “It was difficult to dictate answers to a scribe from a non-law background, especially in papers like Drafting and Leading cases because it requires dictating the format of writ petitions, special leave petitions, and so on,” he explained.
It wasn’t easy for Semmozhi as well. “I just had to write whatever he said and had to keep up with the pace with which he was saying because of severe time constraints. Others had to just read the question by themselves and then write, but here he had to frame the entire sentences in his mind and also read out slowly to me so that I could write,” she told ThePrint.
Noting that the exams were not disabled-friendly, the lawyer said, “Any law student for the visually challenged should be provided because the question of cheating does not arise as the invigilator is always present inside the room.”
Mentioning his writ petition, Visakhamurthy said, he had even mentioned that Papers 2 and 4 should be different for a visually challenged person, which was again rejected. Moreover, he also sought separate correction leeway because someone unfamiliar with the subject would commit a lot of spelling mistakes in legal terms and jargons — this, too, was not accepted by the Supreme Court.
“Drafting is a paper that cannot be prepared by anybody beforehand. The question paper contains the entire case laws and history that run into several pages and we are asked to write a writ petition for example,” he explained.
His difficulty was also the format that had to be communicated to Semmozhi. “She was supposed to read and I had to grasp and dictate the answers to her,” he said.
Even when certain papers were of open-book examination nature, it was difficult for Semmozhi to find the relevant portions quickly and help Visakhamurthy find the answer.
“That took us really long because I had to search for the relevant portions and I had no clue how to do that. And then I had to read it out to him and he had to absorb all of the information in the given time constraints amid stress, frame the answer in his head, and then narrate it to me,” she explained.
Preparation for AoR exam
Visakhamurthy lost 40-50 per cent of vision by the time he reached Class 10 and his condition since has only been deteriorating, struggling to even read and write.
With a vision of 3/60 in both eyes, he was diagnosed as a visually challenged person a few years after he finished Class 10.
To prepare for the AoR exam, he attended online lectures taken by the Supreme Court Bar Association and Supreme Court Advocates On Record Association (SCAORA).
“I would record the lectures and listen to them repeatedly to understand what the questions were, how to deal with them, and tried to grasp that,” Visakhamurthy said.
During the exam, based on the facts given in the question that Semmozhi would read to him slowly, he would dictate the answers to her. “Supreme Court of India, you should write in the top and middle, then year, Writ Petition, in bracket Civil, dash, number, dash like that,” were some of the instructions he gave to the Class 12 student.
Explaining her struggles, Semmozhi’s said that in papers like Drafting, Visakhamurthy had to minutely dictate to her how to write terms like ‘Hon’ble’ instead of ‘Honourable’ as it is normally written, number, place, or date to be written in a certain way, the alignments of words and phrases and so on.
Acknowledging her contribution, Visakhamurthy said, “She’s very sweet and patient. She wrote the exam for me for four hours in every paper continuously. Without her, I could not have passed this exam. She has helped me a lot.”
Semmozhi’s mother, A.Sumathi, who is also an AoR, too, felt proud of her daughter. Sumathi told ThePrint that Semmozhi scored a perfect score of 800 in Common University Entrance Test (CUET) held last year.
The bigger challenges
Explaining what drew him to the profession, Visakhamurthy said, “This (law) is suitable for visually challenged persons.”
A son of a homemaker mother and a father who is a doctor, Visakhamurthy conceded that the success story could not have been possible if not for his parents’ support.
“I believe that once someone like me knows the law and the client comes, I will have to hear what the clients want and apply the law and argue because I know the law very well,” he said.
But while talking to Visakhamurthy one realises that the challenges he faced did not just end at the exam table. Basic infrastructure at the court premises, including the Supreme Court, fails him and many others like him.
However, Visakhamurthy says, practising in the Supreme Court is still easier than working in the district courts. “Visually challenged people like us are afraid to argue and appeal in the Supreme Court. But it is easy to work in there rather than District Court. Like me, others will have to come forward, nothing is impossible,” Visakhamurthy said.
However, he goes on to say that the infrastructure for differently-abled people is yet not conducive, even in the apex court. “There is only one car parking mentioned for disabled but not one disabled person is able to park. It is just for namesake,” Visakhamurthy noted, adding that there are no separate toilets and the ramp facilities are poor.
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The multiple hindrances
Visakhamurthy completed his five-year Bachelors in Law in 1998 from Dr Ambedkar Law College, Chennai, and got his Master’s degree from the University of Madras in 2001. He also completed his PhD last year from Dr Ambedkar Law University in Chennai.
In 2012, he cleared Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) to become assistant commissioner [legal] at Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department where he worked for five years and was appointed a government advocate twice in the Madras High Court.
In 2018, he cleared the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exam to become an Indian Legal Service officer under the Ministry of Law and Justice. He was selected for the post of assistant government advocate (AGA), but was reassigned to work in Shastri Bhawan (Main Secretariat) to work as a legal advisor.
“I was told that being visually challenged, it would have been difficult to work in the AGA role (sic),” he told ThePrint
In 2021, he was reassigned to work in Central Agency Section at the Supreme Court. The nature of work was to coordinate between the government and the judiciary, during which he cleared the AoR exam.
“I appreciate Law Secretary Niten Chandra, Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud and Attorney General R. Venkataramani for supporting me as I was transferred from the Main Secretariat to the Supreme Court that helped me undergo one-year training under senior advocate A.K. Sharma,” he said.
This, he said, paved the way to appear for the AoR exam.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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