JUDGMENT

Sanjay Kishan Kaul, J. - The art is non-conformist in character!

We are reminded of Edgar Degas' poignant observation that "Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."

2. The respondent Institute is a premier Institute and one would expect it to encourage a liberal thought process and not put courses connected with films in any conformists' box. It is this thought process which made us pass the order on 30.11.2021 dealing with the aspect of colour blindness. We had sketched out that the colour blindness is not a form of blindness at all but a deficiency in the way you see colour. This medical condition makes it difficult to distinguish certain colours such as blue and yellow or red and green, and an estimated eight percent of the male population and less than one per cent of the female population have red and green colour deficiency, being the most common form of colour blindness.

3. The Us which has arisen before us is from a fundamental question where a person who is colour blind is excluded from pursuing a course for Diploma in Editing in the Films and Television Institute of India, Pune(FTII)/respondent No.1. It is not necessary for us to get into the depth of the facts which already stand noticed in the aforementioned order or the respective submissions of the counsels made on that date. Suffice to say that instead of taking a call itself on whether colour blindness would be an aspect which would be an impediment in going through the course, we found it appropriate to form a committee to look into the issue and connected issues. On suggestions from counsels for parties and our own path of discovery, we constituted a Committee of the following:-

4. We put a caveat at the inception itself that in view of the passage of time of almost six years, the respondent would have to go through the rigors of the process of a selection anew, but dependent on the fate of the order to be passed on consideration of the report of the Committee, it had the potentiality to remove the impediment in the future on account of colour blindness, if the Committee so opined.

5. We also considered appropriate to facilitate a more comprehensive exercise by the Committee to opine on the aspect of colour blindness qua all the courses for which it is perceived as a disqualification.

6. The report of the Committee has been placed before us. It is signed by all THE members except one i.e. Mr. K. Rajasekaran, HOD Editing, FTII who had some caveats which we will consider after noticing the report of the Committee.

7. The Committee rightly framed the two issues on which the opinion of the Committee was sought as under:

"i. Whether the course curriculum provided for diploma in Editing can be successfully completed by the appellant who suffers from color blindness?

ii. To facilitate a more comprehensive exercise, the role of the committee would be to opine on the aspect of color blindness qua all the courses for which it is perceived as a disqualification."

KEY HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE COMMITTEE'S DISCUSSIONS

8. The Committee held about eight online meetings. With a view to inform itself of the practice of admission of colour blind individuals prevalent in premier international institutes, it short listed and wrote to ten top international film and television institutes, it but responses were received only from two of them. In the course of deliberations of the Committee, it was found