Can the blind see? Delhi High Court has a unique answer as it rules in favour blind candidate for AAI selection

Published on : 16 Oct 2025, 1:17 pm 3 min read

The Delhi High Court on Thursday quashed the Airports Authority of India’s (AAI) rejection of a blind candidate for Junior Executive (Law), holding that the ability to “see” must be understood beyond the physical sense of sight [Mudit Gupta v Airport Authority of India and Anr] .

A Division Bench of Justices C Hari Shankar and Ajay Digpaul invoked Lady Smart’s quote from Jonathan Swift’s book Polite Conversation in Three Dialogues, “There’s none so blind as they that won’t see".

It posed a philosophical question “Can the blind see?” and drew a sharp distinction between the physical act of seeing and the functional capacity of perception and cognition.

The Court said that the eye is merely a recorder of images and that real