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According to the provisions of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, candidates who have qualified NEET exam and have low vision can pursue MBBS courses in India. Admissions to these students cannot be denied by colleges or by the MCI.
Honourable Supreme Court, in an order, has allowed students with low vision to pursue MBBS course. In this context, low vision is a disability in which a person’s eyesight can neither be corrected or improved. Since the candidate qualified the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) in the PwD category of applicants, he was granted the permission to pursue MBBS by the SC. The bench exclaimed that a person could not be denied admission if he/she has qualified the entrance exam in the respective category.
On 24th September 2017 last year, the top court had opened the doors of MBBS for colorblind students who had secured qualifying marks in the NEET exam. Now, on the other hand, last week a student had filed a case in the court after he was denied admission in MBBS because he had low vision. On investigating the matter, the court found out that there were discrepancies in the reports submitted by MCI where it stated that a person with more than 40% vision loss could not granted admission in the medical courses in India.
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The petitioner in his appeal had also mentioned that since there was a five percent reservation for the PwD category, he could not be denied admission in the MBBS course despite qualifying the NEET exam. As per the rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016, a person comes under the “the benchmark disability” when the person suffers from not less than 40% of a specified disability, where the disability is not defined in measurable terms.
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On the other hand, a senior advocate Vikas Singh who was appearing on behalf of the Medical Council of India (MCI) said that the disability act will not work for admissions to MBBS courses in a medical college as it only provides for reservation in higher educational institutions and not technical institutions.
