After the Supreme Court allowed medical aspirants suffering from low vision to get admission, the Delhi High Court has cleared the cases of admission of candidates with hearing impairments, specific learning disabilities and blood disorder-related disabilities into MBBS this year. All of these were cancelled earlier on the basis of Medical Council of India (MCI) guidelines and faulty medical boards.

A panel has suggested including Indian Sign Language as a subject, offering Braille as a language option and providing various difficulty levels of core subjects for students with special needs as part of curriculum and examination reforms.

These are among key recommendations made by a group of representatives from various examination boards, advocates, parents, disabled students, experts in the field who carried out extensive brainstorming in Delhi.

In a significant order, the Supreme Court has allowed a person suffering from ‘low vision’, a disability in which the eyesight cannot be corrected or improved, to pursue the MBBS course and treat patients. The top court allowed a student to pursue MBBS on the ground that he has cleared the 2018 National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) in the category of Persons with Disability. A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Indira Banerjee held that the petitioner “cannot be denied admission to the MBBS course if he qualifies as per his merit in the category of Persons with Disability.