Delhi HC relief to MBBS aspirant who was denied admission due to her 80% disability [Read Judgment]

In a relief to an MBBS aspirant, who was declared not eligible for admission to MBBS due to her 80% disability, the Delhi High Court has directed the University not to deny admission to her on the ground of disability, if she is successful in a future NEET examination.

Sanjana Sinha, when she was seventeen, had underwent amputation of her left leg, and got an artificial leg/prosthetic limb fitted. After qualifying NEET examination, she applied to Faculty of Medical Sciences for admission to MBBS course against the seats reserved for physically handicapped person. Although initially she found her name in the merit list and rank list, later she was declared not eligible for admission to MBBS due to her disability, which is 80%. The petitioner challenged this through the Writ petition, by contending that with the external aid/prosthetic limb her disability is less than 70%, within the prescribed range.

Division Bench comprising of Justices V. Kameswar Rao and Badar Durrez Ahmed observed “A welfare legislation…… needs to be given a purposive interpretation, inasmuch as to give benefit to a person with disability so that he/she don’t feel less privileged than a normal person. Moreover, we find that the petitioner has a brilliant academic carrier and has also qualified the NEET examination but for the disability, she would have got the admission in the course.”

The Court also observed that having disability of 80% is a more appropriate case to be given benefit of the Act, since with the external aid/prosthetic limb, the disability would come within the range as permissible under the Regulation i.e. between 40/50-70.

The Court allowed the Writ petition in following terms: “we may only state here that the petitioner was a successful candidate for the academic year starting 2013-2014. At this point of time, no direction can be issued to give admission to the petitioner on the basis of the said examination. The only direction that can be given is, in view of our discussion, the respondent shall not deny admission to the petitioner if she is successful in a future NEET examination on the ground that she has a disability of 80%.”

Read the Judgment here.