People of Value

New Delhi: Struggling for an Unrestricted World

It takes courage to fight injustice in a world you cannot see. And resilience has always been the characteristic of Prasanna Pincha, the visually impaired head of Action Aid's Northeast operations.

Two years back Pincha had taken a private domestic airline to court for dumping him at the rear of the craft despite holding a boarding pass for a window seat upfront. He made news again by slamming a petition against the Guwahati branch of the IDBI bank.

"There are institutions brandishing ridiculous rules to deny the physically challenged their rights." The social worker is upbeat about changing the mindset of actuaries and insurance company bosses. "Why should insurance companies demand higher premiums from blind policy holders on the presumption that there's grater risk to their lives?" asks Pincha, wondering if visually impaired is equivalent to lesser citizens.

Discrimination was something Pincha decided to fight against after he approached IDBI Ltd to open and account earlier this year. The bank refused him an account, as he was blind. They told him that they would give him cheque facility only if he signed an agreement to bear the risk of signature fraud.

The bank wielded an order passed by the Deputy Chief Commissioner (disabilities) on September 5 last year that restricts enjoyment of cheque facility by blind persons and limits it only to issuance of crossed cheques.

"It also presumes that all blind persons put their thumb impressions only and that they are incapable of signing," Pincha says. "I found the argument as well as the other insulting, and approached the high Court."

The court accepted his arguments that bank install finger probe machines for people putting their signatures or thumb impression to operate their accounts.

Source: Blind justice. The Hindustan Times, New Delhi, 15 July 2006.