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The Supreme Court on Friday has allowed a 100% visually impaired student to appear for state counselling for admission for MD Psychiatry while further allowing interim relief stating that the seat provisionally allotted to the petitioner shall not be disturbed till further orders. 

The petitioner student was declared ineligible for the post-graduate medical course by the Disability Assessment Board owing to his disability of 100% impaired vision in both eyes which further denied his admission to the course.

Sr. Adv. C S Vaidyanathan briefed by Karanjawala & Co appeared for the petitioner student.

The petitioner, a young MBBS doctor with 100% visual impairment in both eyes who had cleared the NEET-PG entrance exam, challenged the said decision of the Board in a writ before the High Court of Bombay along with a further challenge to the Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations (Amendment) 2019.

He submitted that the Regulations were violative of fundamental rights, not backed by any expert input and that did not consider functional abilities on a case to case basis in respect of each discipline/ medical field. 

The said Regulations mention that a person with low vision above 40% can be allowed under Disability Quota subject to the condition that the visual disability is brought to a level less than the benchmark disability of 40% with advanced low vision aids.

However, the Bombay High Court had declined the interim prayer of the petitioner to permit him to participate in the counseling process of NEET for Post Graduate Medical Courses by its order dated February 2, 2022, challenging which the petitioner moved Supreme Court.

Vaidyanathan was briefed by a team consisting of Nandini Gore, Sonia Nigam and Sarthak Gaur, advocates from Karanjawala and Co. 

Case Title: Iyer Seetharaman Venugopal Vs. Union of India amd Ors.