The father of a 40 per cent visually impaired boy arrived in Delhi from Kaithal, Haryana on Tuesday to meet disability rights activists. The man feared that his son, studying in Class 12, might not be able to take the medical entrance exam in the absence of final guidelines from the Medical Council of India (MCI) for persons with disabilities.

He mentioned that his son has been preparing for NEET (National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test) for two years and the time is running out now. So, he came to Delhi, though he had little clue about what needs to be done. He said that he would meet activists, and maybe, go to the Health Ministry.

The draft MCI guidelines state that 40 per cent or more visually impaired (low vision and blindness) are not eligible for a medical course, while a Supreme Court judgment last year validated the claim of a medical aspirant with low vision to be admitted in an MBBS course in Gujarat.

Rishabh Pal of Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, is 45 per cent hearing impaired, and has filled the NEET form. However, he is not clear about the eligibility criteria. His elder brother, Shubham, stated that they didn’t know if Rishabh could avail the disability quota or not for an MBBS course. Shubham feared that Rishabh could lose a year and even a career option.

While the draft MCI guidelines state that hearing impaired equal to or more than 40 per cent disability are not eligible, a Delhi High Court judgment has allowed a 70 per cent hearing impaired girl to pursue MBBS at a medical college in Delhi.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) launched the online application process on November 1, 2018, with the old MCI guidelines for persons with disabilities. Disability activists and guardians complained and the Health Ministry thus stepped in and asked NTA to issue a notification that medical aspirants with disabilities can fill NEET forms based draft guidelines that MCI has posted on its website.

The notification; however, came hardly three days before the deadline to submit the application form was to end. The Supreme Court intervened and extended the deadline for submission of forms by a week.

The draft guidelines have still not been upheld and approved by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

On January 14, the NTA opened a correction window for candidates to submit corrections in their application forms. However, even that deadline is set to close on January 31, and people like Pal, who could have made corrections in their forms based on the final MCI guidelines, remain clueless.

Dr Satendra Singh, a disability rights activist, said that he had never heard of any examination being conducted on the basis of draft guidelines. Every day is now critical for medical aspirants with disabilities. He added that as he sees it, the reason for the delay in finalizing the MCI guidelines is to give little time to the candidates to take the legal route as the draft guidelines are in violation of various rulings of the Supreme Court and High Courts. He stated that they put unnecessary bars on disabled aspirants. Dr Singh represents a pan-India body called Doctors with Disabilities.

The pan-India body has already termed the revised MCI draft guidelines for admission into MBBS courses under disability quota as “unfair, discriminatory and unlawful”.

Sources in MCI have stated that they are getting reminders from the Health Ministry and the guidelines have been finalized. However, NTA chairperson, Vineet Joshi, said that they had no information about the revised MCI guidelines for MBBS courses and hadn’t received them yet.

The medical test is scheduled on May 5, 2019.