The Supreme Court dismissed a plea seeking to admit the petitioner for medical undergraduate course for academic year 2021-2022 under disabled category in order of merit and as provided by Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016.
A division bench of Justices L. Nageshwar Rao and B.R Gavai was hearing the plea of a petitioner, who is suffering from locomotor disability with congenital agenesis of all fingers of left hand with 45 % disability. The nature of disability specified above is permanent in nature.
The petitioner applied and appeared for the NEET UG 2021 examination. The petition avers that the petitioner secured NEET All India Rank 570779; Category Rank 177726 and PwD rank 1335 and thus is eligible for admission for MBBS under-graduate course in the PwD category.
The Regulations on Graduate Medical Education (Amendment), 2019 provide that the minimum degree of disability should be 40% (Benchmark Disability) in order to be eligible for availing reservation for persons with specified disability, but under Appendix H, it is provided that in case of Physical Disability/ Locomotor Disability, parameters such as (i) both hands intact, (ii) with intact sensations, (iii) sufficient strength and (iv) range of motion, will be considered.
Also read: Hijab controversy: Karnataka High Court adjourns hearing to Tuesday