Benchmark disability no grounds for denying admission to MBBS courses: Supreme Court

New Delhi [India], October 15 (ANI): The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that merely consideration of a benchmark disability shall not come into admission in medical courses.

The judgement was pronounced by a bench of Justice B R Gavai, Aravind Kumar and KV Viswanathan. The top court said that the mere existence of benchmark disability will not be the reason for denying admission to MBBS courses.

The apex court also made it clear that the board assessing the disability of the candidate must clearly mention whether the disability of the candidate will or will not come in the way of the candidate pursuing courses.

The direction of the Supreme Court came on a petition filed by one speech and language disability candidate seeking admission to medical courses.

On September 18, the top court directed the disabled candidate to be admitted against the seat, which was directed to be kept vacant as per the orders passed by this Court.

The petitioner has been disqualified only on the basis of the percentage of speech and language disability. The Certifying Authority concluded that since persons having speech and language disability above 40 per cent are not eligible as per extant regulation, the petitioner is ineligible since his disability is to the extent of 44 per cent.