SC eCommittee Held First Ever Digital ICT Training For Visually Challenge JOs

The Supreme Court eCommittee recently held the first-ever digital accessibility Information and Communications Technology (ICT) training for visually impaired judicial officers and staffs at the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA).

Digital accessibility training for people with disabilities is being phased in for judges and court staff as part of the eCommittee’s ICT capacity-building exercise.

This training will be expanded to include all types of disabilities. The first phase of this training program was specifically designed for visually impaired judges and court staff.

CJI Chandrachud, as Chairperson of the e-Committee, encouraged all High Courts to make their digital infrastructure accessible to all, in accordance with the constitutional and statutory rights of people with disabilities. His letter included a list of structural interventions that all High Courts should implement to improve digital accessibility.

The two-day training was conducted in two separate batches for six visually impaired judicial officers and fourteen visually impaired court staff. The program was hands-on and covered a wide range of assistive technologies.

These included screen readers and instant reading devices for accessible reading of court documents, creating and accessing digital documents, scanning and converting documents to accessible formats, using the internet and searching for judgments with screen readers, utilizing smartphone-based assistive technologies, keyboard orientation and input in regional languages, and the use of artificial intelligence tools and techniques for the visually impaired.