Vital questions about disability status removed

Irked by exclusion of disability information, SC seeks reply from PBS

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has sought an explanation from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) over the removal of questions regarding the status of people with disabilities in the national population census.

A three-judge bench of the apex court – headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar – voiced its concern over the exclusion of questions meant to gather information regarding people with special needs.

While questions related to information of the disabled persons was included in the first form, then why it has been removed in the second one, the chief justice wondered. “The court wants to know the logic behind this move and whether it is a policy decision,” he said.

However, Justice Nisar observed that the census process could not be halted at this stage because the exercise had been launched on the directive of the court. He also said that information related to the disabled could be complied through some other mechanism.



The development came during the hearing of a petition filed by Advocate Raheel Kamran Sheikh on behalf of six persons with disabilities under Article 184 (3) of the Constitution.



The federal and provincial governments and the national and provincial councils for rehabilitation of disabled persons are among the respondents in the case.

The petitioners later moved a miscellaneous application requesting the apex court to direct all departments concerned to ensure collection of necessary data on the incidence of disability, besides ensuring proper identification of persons with disabilities, documenting impairments and categorising types, causes, duration and severity of the disabilities.

During the hearing, Raheel told the bench that the PBS in its press statement stated that they were ready to include the questions about the disability of a person, if the government gave them instruction in this regard.

He requested the court to pass the order to the PBS for including the question in the second phase, starting from April 15. However, the court asked Deputy Attorney General Sajid Ilyas Bhatti to get a reply from PBS authorities. The hearing was adjourned till Thursday.

Meanwhile, the petition stated that during the course of consultations with the PBS, the petitioners were assured that appropriate forms would contain questions in this regard.



“This was reflected in an earlier copy of the questionnaire generated by the PBS and shared with the petitioners and called ‘Form 2’.

“However, the most recent version of the form excluded all such questions for collecting information about persons with disabilities.”

“It only deals with queries pertaining to demographic details of households.”

The petitioners contended that such omissions in ‘Form 2’ meant that the census would actually be limited to a ‘headcount’ exercise and crucial information for addressing various social challenges, such as assisting persons with disabilities, would once again not be collected and, therefore, remain unavailable.

The petitioners told the apex court that the paucity of reliable data in this regard largely obstructed effective enforcement of laws or policies intended to assist persons with disabilities.

According to them, if lawmakers and administrative functionaries continued to work with out-dated data, they would continue to remain unaware of the actual number of people who needed specific intervention, treatment, training and rehabilitation.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 15^th, 2017.