New Delhi, Sep 15 (PTI) The Delhi High Court Thursday sought the response of the Centre and National Medical Commission on a plea by a doctor challenging the disability certificate issued by Lady Hardinge Medical College claiming that it failed to conclude whether he is eligible or not to pursue postgraduate medical education.

Justice Yashwant Varma sought a response from the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, National Medical Commission (NMC), Medical Counseling Committee, All India Institute of Medical Sciences and Lady Hardinge Medical College, and associated hospitals on the petition by the divyang doctor.

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The court listed the matter for further hearing on September 19.

NMC was represented through advocate T Singhdev.

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The doctor, who claimed to be a person with a benchmark disability, challenged the disability certificate which was issued to him on September 1 by Lady Hardinge Medical College saying that it has failed to conclude whether the petitioner is eligible or not to pursue medical education.

The petitioner, represented through advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal, said as per the certificate the petitioner is 'eligible' as well as 'not eligible' to pursue medical education, thus it is contradictory and is liable to be quashed.

“It is important to mention here that as per the NMC notification dated March 13, 2019, persons with a hearing disability of more than 40 per cent may be made eligible to pursue post-graduate medical education and may be given the benefit of persons with disability (PwD) Quota, subject to the condition that the hearing disability is brought to a level of less than the benchmark of 40 per cent with the aid of assistive devices. In addition to this, the individual should have a speech discrimination score of more than 60 per cent,” the plea said.

It said as per the disability certificate, the unaided hearing disability of the petitioner is 61 per cent and with the aid of assistive devices, the aided hearing disability is 20 per cent which is less than the benchmark of 40 per cent set by NMC and hence, he is eligible to pursue medical education.

The plea said as per the certificate, the petitioner's aided speech disability score or word recognition score was 53 per cent.

It, however, said as per the test report issued by the ENT Department of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital on September 7, the petitioner's aided speech disability score or word recognition score is 70 per cent which is more than 60 per cent as required to make him eligible for pursuing medical education.

The petitioner said as per NMC notification, the medical board of NEET disability certification centre has to calculate the speech discrimination score, whereas in this case, Lady Hardinge Medical College has determined the 'speech disability score', and sought to direct AIIMS or any other medical college to re-examine the functional competency of the petitioner. PTI SKV

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