Judgment Intelligence
Petition AllowedAnshul Sharma v. State of Rajasthan & Ors.
S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 4541/2022
- Court
- Rajasthan High Court
- Date of Decision
- 30 March 2022
- Bench
- Justice Ashok Kumar Gaur
- Relevant Acts & Sections
- Gazette Notification dated 13.05.2019 on admission of persons with disabilities to medical courses — Appendix H-1 (locomotor disability)
Final Outcome
Writ petition allowed. The petitioner may join the mop-up or any later counselling round and is to be admitted if he falls in merit; a copy goes to SMS Medical College, Jaipur, to advise the Board's members (paras 30, 33-34).
Key holdings
- A certificate declaring a PwD candidate ineligible after a casual examination reflects negligence and non-application of mind (paras 19, 21, 27).
- Appendix H-1 of the Gazette Notification of 13.05.2019 requires both hands intact, with intact sensation, sufficient strength and range of motion (paras 24-25).
- A board cannot declare a candidate ineligible merely because he has a locomotor disability (para 26).
- A proper board report meeting the norms entitles the candidate to PwD reservation in counselling, subject to rank and merit (paras 28, 30).
- Disability Certificate Centres must examine every candidate on the parameters in the Gazette or later guidelines (para 31).
Case explainer by NyayVidhan: an account of this judgment and the law it laid down, not the court's text. The judgment itself is the authoritative version.
Brief Facts
Anshul Sharma took NEET UG-2021 and claimed eligibility for MBBS admission in the PwD category (paras 1-2). By a certificate of 27.12.2021, the Disability Certificate Centre at SMS Medical College, Jaipur, found him not eligible (para 1). On 16.03.2022 the Court directed a Board to re-examine him and, as an interim measure, let him take part in the mop-up round subject to the outcome (paras 3, 29). On 28.03.2022 it found that the Board's report after the examination of 22.03.2022 ignored the guidelines, and ordered a fresh examination (paras 3-5). The Board's report of 29.03.2022 recorded 50% permanent physical impairment, intact sensation, minimal weakness in the right hand and normal range of motion in both hands (para 7).
Court's Findings
The certificate of 27.12.2021 was issued in a very casual manner without a thorough examination, and the authorities were negligent (paras 19, 27). A disability certificate decides whether a student can claim the 5% PwD reservation in UG admissions, so a casual approach can ruin the career of an MBBS aspirant; the certifying centres must follow the guidelines of the Competent Authority (para 20). The Court called the case a classic example of non-application of mind: even the second examination it ordered produced a certificate that disregarded the prescribed norms (paras 21-22). Under Appendix H-1 of the Gazette Notification of 13.05.2019, a candidate claiming locomotor disability must have both hands intact with intact sensation, sufficient strength and range of motion (paras 24-25). Examiners must apply those parameters and cannot simply declare a candidate ineligible because he has a locomotor disability (para 26). The report of 29.03.2022 addressed each requirement (para 23), and on it the petitioner was entitled to admission under the PwD reservation if his rank and merit qualified (para 28). The Court refrained from acting against the negligent officers but directed due application of mind in future (para 32).
Legal Principle
A disability certificate that decides a candidate's eligibility for PwD reservation in medical admissions must follow a thorough examination against the parameters in the Gazette guidelines. For locomotor disability, the board must assess whether both hands are intact with intact sensation, sufficient strength and range of motion, not merely record the disability (paras 20, 25-26).
