'Casual Approach': Supreme Court Summons Director General Of Health Services In Plea Of Disabled Candidate For MBBS Admission

The Supreme Court today (December 11) has sought the personal presence of the Director General, Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India tomorrow at 10:30 am in Court.

This observation came after the Court found that the approach of the Respondents, in this case, was "casual" in a case related to the medical admission of a 20-year old student from Other Backward Class with a locomotor benchmark disability coupled with speech disability since birth.

The matter is going to be heard as item no.1 tomorrow.

The petitioner has challenged the judgment of the Punjab and Haryana High Court dated September 23, whereby the Court dismissed a writ petition filed by the petitioner challenging the certificate of disability for National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET)-UG admission issued by the Government Medical College and Hospital, which rendered him ineligible to pursue medical education.

As per the SLP, the petitioner took NEET-UG on May 5 as an OBC candidate, eligible for 5% horizontal reservation on account of being a person with disability. When results were declared on August 26, the petitioner secured 205 marks out of 720 maximum marks, which was above the cut-off marks of 143-127 for the OBC-PwD category.

When the petitioner sought his disability certificate, his locomotor disability was quantified at 50%, which is within the prescribed range of 40-80% making him eligible for reservation under 'physical disability quota' for medical education.

The petitioner's plea is that in his disability certificate, he however declared ineligible to pursue medical education on account of his quantified disability and without offering any reasons.

The SLP states: "It is most humbly submitted that both the Disability Certification Board as well as the High Court have completely failed to apply the principles of "reasonable accommodation" in the present case. They have made absolutely no effort to explore if any necessary modification or adjuments could be made to see if the petitioner would be able to pursue his medical education with the help of such modification or adjustments."

A bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and KV Viswanathan passed this order just before the bench was about to rise for the day.

The order states: "It is unfortunate that in the matter concerning admission of the petitioner belonging to the Persons with Disability category, in spite of notice being duly served, none appears. Though normally we do not direct the presence of the officers of the Government to remain present in the Court, in view of the casual approach of Respondent No.2, we are compelled to direct the personal presence of the Director General, Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, New Delhi in this Court on 12.12.2024 at 10.30 A.M."

The respondents in this case are Union, Office of Medical Counselling Committee, National Testing Agency, National Medical Commission, Chandigarh Administration and Government Medical College and Hospital.

The presence of Respondent 2 has been sought since the order dated December 2, it was directed that the the petitioner be admitted against the OBC-PwD category in accordance with his own merits.

Case Details: ANMOL v. UNION OF INDIA AND ORS., SLP(C) No. 27632/2024

Appearances: Atif Inam, AOR (petitioner)

Click Here To Read Order