The Delhi high court on Monday directed The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) to prepare within six months its own panel of scribes to assist disabled students, including the visually impaired, in writing chartered accountancy exams conducted by it.

Justice V K Jain said that the institute should either empanel appropriate persons to function as scribes or engage the panel of scribes prepared by other universities such as JNU and Delhi University that maintain their own panels. The court's order came on a petition filed by a visually impaired chartered accountant student Reena Bhatia, who sought direction to the institute to prepare a panel of competent scribes to be provided to differently-abled candidates during their exams.

ICAI had told the court that it has not maintained it own panel of scribes as it did not had its own campus and had to conduct examination at as many as in 377 centres spread over 96 cities throughout the country as well as in four cities outside the country. On this, the court directed ICAI to prepare a panel of the scribes to differently abled person at least in the "major cities where examinations are held by it".