MD SHAH AFZAL Vs. MEDICAL COUNCIL OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This judgment shall dispose of three writ petitions. Two of them have been filed by Mohd. Shah Afzal and one on behalf of MCI. We shall refer to Mohd. Shah Afzal as ,,the petitioner for the sake of convenience in all the three petitions and the Medical Council of India shall be referred to as ,,the MCI, the other parties being the University of Delhi, which shall be referred to as ,,the Delhi University, and the Union of India. The petitioner is an orthopedically handicapped person and has a

(2.) locomotor disability concerning his lower limbs to the extent of 64%. He has, on more than one occasion, applied for admission to the MBBS course of the Delhi University against seats reserved for persons with disabilities and claims his right under Section 39 of the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 (hereinafter referred to as ,,the said Act). The petitioner took the Delhi University Medical Entrance Test in 2008 (DUMET-2008) and secured 41.5% marks in the qualifying papers. He again sat for DUMET-2009, but this time he obtained only 37% marks. The plea of the petitioner is that although there is 3% reservation of seats for physically disabled candidates, those seats go abegging because of the high threshold of minimum 50% marks, which has been applied to all candidates including physically disabled but excluding the candidates belonging to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes categories (hereinafter referred to as ,,SC/ST). In respect of the SC/ST candidates, the minimum qualifying marks have been relaxed to 40%. The main thrust of the arguments on behalf of the petitioner is that physically disabled candidates should be treated at par with the SC/ST candidates. In other words, all that the petitioner seeks is that the minimum qualifying marks for the entrance examination in respect of physically handicapped candidates should be reduced to 40% as against the stipulated 50% for general candidates.

(3.) The petitioner had also approached the Chief Commissioner for Disabilities under the said Act and the said Chief Commissioner, by an order dated 08.09.2007, directed the Delhi University and the MCI to extend the relaxation of marks insofar as the physically disabled candidates are concerned so as to bring it at par with the relaxation given to candidates belonging to SC/ST categories. The Chief Commissioner also directed the MCI to ensure that all government / government aided institutions running medical courses, should extend the relaxation in marks to the physically disabled candidates so as to bring it at par with the relaxation given to SC/ST candidates. It is as a consequence of this order passed by the Chief Commissioner and the fact that despite the said directions the petitioner was not being granted admission despite availability of seats, that the petitioner filed WP(C) 1352/2008 seeking a mandamus that the directions given by the Chief Commissioner in the order dated 18.09.2007 be implemented by the MCI by issuing amended regulations for admission and selection to medical courses in government and government aided institutions for the academic session 2008-2009 and beyond such that the minimum qualifying marks in the qualifying examination and medical entrance test for eligible physically disabled candidates is relaxed to 40% at par with the minimum qualifying marks for SC/ST candidates.