Supreme court verdict on 40 percent benchmark disability: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that having a benchmark disability of 40 percent cannot stop any candidate from pursuing medical studies, unless there is an expert report that the candidate is not fit to do MBBS. I am unable to.
Justice B. R. Gavai, Justice Arvind Kumar and Justice K. The bench headed by Justice V. Vishwanathan gave detailed reasons for its September 18 order allowing a candidate to seek admission to the MBBS course only if the medical board approves that he can pursue medical education without any obstruction. . The bench said that the capability of a candidate suffering from disability to pursue MBBS course should be examined by the Disability Assessment Board.
It says, “Mere existence of benchmark disability will not disqualify a candidate from being eligible for MBBS course. The Disability Board assessing the disability of the candidate must record positively whether the disability of the candidate will come in the way of the candidate completing the course or not.” Along with this, the court has also said in its decision that if the Disability Board declares a candidate incapable of doing MBBS course, then the board will have to give valid reasons for this.
The court ruled on a plea by Omkar, a student, who had challenged the Graduate Medical Education Regulations of 1997, which bar candidates with more than 40 per cent disability from pursuing the MBBS course.
