Shubham Mishra vs Union Of India & Ors.

ABDHESH KUMAR CHAUDHARY, J.:

It is a deeply regrettable state of affairs that, notwithstanding the statutory primacy and binding nature of the Disability Certificate issued by the Competent Authority under Section 57 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, 2016, this Court remains continuously inundated with repetitive writ petitions during each successive academic session. This perennial litigation stems directly from an unresolved jurisdictional friction between statutory mandates and administrative regulations for issuance of functional eligibility certificate by the Medical Assessment Board constituted under the aegis of the National Medical Commission (NMC) for candidates seeking admission in MBBS course under the disability category.

This academic year is also not different, as we pen down this judgment, we find atleast three writ petitions raising the same common issue. The factual matrix of these writ petitions relevant to the context is succinctly set out in two tabular charts, namely Table-A and Table-B, which encapsulate the relevant particulars and data necessary for an effective adjudication of the matter:-Table-A (Details of the Disability)

Since all these writ petitions arise out of common questions of law, they are being decided by this common judgment, however, Writ –C No. 9769 of 2026 has been considered as a lead petition and the facts mentioned therein are narrated as under, for dealing with the common issue raised in all these writ petitions. It would be relevant to mention here that in Writ-C No. - 10095 of 2026 petitioner no. 2, namely, Aasif Hassan vide order dated 16.09.2026 has withdrawn the writ petition with liberty to file afresh.

Shorn of unnecessary details, the facts of the lead petition would entail that the petitioner is physically differently abled and as such was issued a Disability Certificate by the Chief Medical Officer, District-Sultanpur, being the competent authority designated under the provisions of Section 57 of the Rights of the Person with Disabilities Act, 2016 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act of 2016’) to issue such a Disability Certificate.

As far as the percentage of disability of the petitioner is concerned, the same has been quantified at 45 % as the petitioner is a case of ‘chronic neurological conditions’ with a diagnosis of “Bell’s Palsy” and the nature of such disability has been identified as “Permanent Disability”. Accordingly, the petitioner has also been issued the Unique Disability ID (UDID) on 02.12.2023 by the competent authority in that regard as per the Act of 2016 and the rules framed therein in 2017.

Be that as it may, the petitioner, being an aspirant for pursuing MBBS course was required to appear in the National Eligibility-Cum- Entrance Test [NEET (U.G.)]-2026 conducted by the “National Testing Agency”. Relevant to the context, we find that on 27.07.2026, the National Medical Commission (NMC), which is a statutory body regulating the medical education, medical professionals, institute, research and grants recognition of medical qualification and accreditation to medical colleges in India, issued guidelines titled as “Guidelines on assessment of reasons of persons with benchmark Disabilities (PwBD) for admission to the MBBS Course, 2026", wherein para 3.17 of the said guideline defined “PwBD” as under :-

Record also reveals that Chapter II of the said Guidelines dealt with the concept of issuance of Eligibility Certificate, Documentation and Disability Assessment and Clause 9.1 reads as under :-

The petitioner, being otherwise qualified as a General-EWS and possessing a certificate of Benchmark Disability (PwBD) above 40%, applied for the [NEET-U.G.]-2026 Examination on 27.02.2026 and provided details of his disability under the column meant for “Disability Details” in the application form.

The result of the National Eligibility-Cum- Entrance Test [NEET (U.G.)]- 2026 was declared on 16.07.2026 and the All-India Rank of the petitioner in category of PwBD was 948 and as such the petitioner was ordinarily expecting a seat in the Government Medical College.

It would be pertinent to mention herein that Chapter-4 of the Information Bulletin and Counseling Scheme for NEET (UG), 2026, governs PwBD Candidates. Apparently, as per the said guidelines, Medical Counseling Committee has been designated by the National Medical Commission to issue eligibility certificate relating to Functional Competency Assessment, which every Candidate with disability was required to obtain before participating in counselling for a seat in the MBBS Course in any Medical College of India.

As far as the petitioner is concerned, it emerges from the records that apparently, the Assessment Board issued the Eligibility Certificate dated 11.08.2026 to the petitioner, wherein the parentage of Bench Mark Disability has been unilaterally sought to be reduced from 45% to 20 % and although the reasons recorded by the Medical Assessment Board has found the petitioner eligible generally for medical education but has not found the person eligible to be admitted under the category of person with Bench Mark Disability reservation. The Appellate Medical PwD Assessment Board, by its "Medical Opinion on Appellate Reassessment" dated 21.08.2026, affirmed the said conclusion, holding the petitioner "Ineligible under PwBD category". It is these two determinations that are under challenge in these three writ petitions.

The petitioner - Shubham Mishra has sought the following substantial reliefs in Writ-C No. – 9769 of 2026 :-

And

The petitioner - Saurabh Rana has sought the following substantial reliefs in Writ-C No. – 9830 of 2026 :-

And

The petitioner - Gulfam Ahmad has sought the following substantial reliefs in Writ-C No - 10095 of 2026 :-

Heard Shri Rajeiu Kumar Tripathi, Shri Diwakar Singh Gautam, learned Counsel for the petitioner, Shri S.B. Pandey, learned Senior Advocate & DSGI assisted by Shri Anand Dwivedi, learned Counsel for respondent Nos.1 to 4, Shri Gyanendra Kumar Srivastava, learned Counsel for respondent No.5, Shri Manish Kumar Shrivastava, Advocate holding brief of Shri Shashank Bhasin, learned Counsel for respondent No.6 and Shri S.M. Haider Rizvi, learned Counsel for respondent No.8 in Writ-C No – 9769 of 2026 and in Writ-C No – 9830 of 2026) Shri S.M. Singh Royekwar, learned counsel for respondent nos. 9 and 10; as well as heard learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners, learned Standing Counsel appearing on behalf of the State and Sri Syed Mohammad Haider Rizvi, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondent No.2 in Writ-C No - 10095 of 2026 .

This Court has heard the aforesaid three writ petitions at the stage of admission and, by interim orders dated September 11, 2026, passed in Writ-C No 9769 of 2026 and Writ-C No 9830 of 2026, as well as by the interim order dated September 16, 2026 passed in Writ-C No. 10095 of 2026, permitted the petitioner to participate in the ongoing counselling process conducted by the respondents as a PwBD (Persons with Benchmark Disabilities) category candidate.

Learned Counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the law relating to the scope and extent of power of the Medical Assessment Board to issue the Eligibility Certificate is no longer res-inetgra, the same having been settled by a recent judgment dated 25.08.2026, passed by a Co-ordinate Division Bench of this Court at Allahabad, in Writ-C No. 33739 of 2026 (Somya Pal Vs. Union of India and others) and a judgment dated 20.08.2026, passed by a Single Bench of this Court, in Writ-C No. 8810 of 2026 (Shubham Rai Vs. Union of India and others), as well as a judgment dated 07.08.2025, passed by a Single Bench of this Court, in Writ -C No. 7585 of 2025 (Maaz Ahmad Vs. Union of India and others); 2025 SCC OnLine All 4736, all of which, in turn, follow the ratio laid down by the Supreme Court in a catena of Judgments.

It is the submission of learned Counsel for the petitioner that guidelines issued by the National Medical Commission (NMC) for assessing the person with Bench Mark Disabilities for admission to MBBS Course was merely meant for assessment of functionality of the PwBD candidate as to whether the aspirant for MBBS course is eligible to pursue his/her education and to facilitate such candidate with reasonable accommodation and assistive technology during persuasion of his/her studies and was not meant for curtailment of his/her rights which stands crystallized and recognized by the Act of 2016 and also the Fundamental Right of Equality as enshrined under Article 14 of the Constitution of the India.

According to the learned Counsel, such assessment was never meant to re-quantify the extent of disability, that exercise being one exclusively within the domain of the competent authority designated under Section 57 read with Section 56 the Act of 2016. He further submits that as far as the Medical Assessment Board constituted under the NMC guidelines was concerned, it is essentially entrusted with only examining the Functional Competency Assessment for pursuing the medical course by the petitioner. He has further submitted that the present case is a case of exceeding jurisdiction by the Medical Assessment Board for issuance of Eligibility Certificate and deciding the percentage of disability by them and thereupon denying the benefit of reservation, when it is clear from the guidelines that the mandate was confined to a functional competency assessment. Further, even the reasons for denying the Eligibility Certificate was confined to Clause 12.14 of the guidelines, which does not require the Board to make any such assessment and/or assign any reason relating to the percentage of disability.

Per contra, learned Counsel for the respondents submit that the prescribed format used by the Medical Assessment Board itself carries a column for recording the percentage of benchmark disability, and that the Board is accordingly entitled to arrive at its own finding in that regard; and that, in any event, the question of eligibility or ineligibility for PwBD reservation has to be examined strictly in accordance with Clause 12.4 of the Guidelines dated 27.07.2026.

Having heard learned Counsel for the parties, we are of the considered view that the issue raised in the present writ petition is primarily one relating to the scope and extent of the power of the Medical Assessment Board, constituted under the Guidelines on Assessment of Persons with Benchmark Disability (PwBD) for Admission to the MBBS Course issued by the National Medical Commission on 27.07.2026, to issue an eligibility certificate — and, in particular, whether the said Board could travel beyond a Functional Competency Assessment so as to re-quantify the extent of the petitioner's disability and thereby deny the benefit of reservation available to a certified PwBD candidate.

Before adverting to the precedents relied upon, it is necessary to notice the statutory architecture of the Act of 2016 bearing on the question at hand. Section 2(r) of the Act of 2016 defines "person with benchmark disability" to mean a person certified to have not less than forty percent of a specified disability, where the specified disability has not been defined in measurable terms, as certified by the certifying authority. Section 56 empowers the appropriate Government to notify Guidelines for the purpose of assessing the extent of a specified disability, and to specify the authority which shall issue a certificate of disability. Section 57 designates the certifying authority, which in the present case is the Chief Medical Officer, District Sultanpur, who is competent to assess and certify, inter alia, the percentage of disability suffered by a person. Section 58 provides for the manner of application and issuance of a certificate of disability.

It is thus the certifying authority under Section 57 of the Act of 2016, applying the criteria notified under Section 56, that is statutorily entrusted with the exercise of quantifying the extent of a person's disability and issuing the certificate of disability and the corresponding Unique Disability ID (UDID). According to this Court, once such a certificate is issued and remains unrevoked, unchallenged and subsisting, the percentage of disability recorded therein constitutes the statutory determination of that fact, binding on all authorities, unless set aside by a forum competent to do so in accordance with law.

Having determined the competent authority for issuance and deciding the percentage of disability, this Court proceeds to examine the inter-play between the Act of 2016 and the guidelines issued by the National Medical Commission.

Apparently, the Guidelines dated 27.07.2026 issued by the NMC, a body deriving its regulation-making authority under the National Medical Commission Act, 2019 for matters of medical education, do not purport to, and indeed could not, arrogate to themselves the power to re-determine the percentage of disability of a candidate, that field being already occupied by Sections 56 and 57 of the Act of 2016, a special beneficial legislation enacted to give effect to India's obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Clause 3.17 of the Guidelines itself adopts, in terms, the definition of "PwBD" under Section 2(r) of the Act of 2016; and Clause 9.1, in prescribing the threshold of 40% benchmark disability for the PwBD category, expressly anchors that threshold "in accordance with the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 and the rules made thereunder". According to this Court, these transplantation of the provisions of the Act of 2016, textually acknowledges that the quantification of disability is to be governed by the Act of 2016 and not re-opened by the Medical Assessment Board constituted under the NMC Guidelines.

We have no doubt in our mind in holding that what the Guidelines do contemplate, and what Chapter II thereof is properly directed towards, is a distinct and narrower exercise i.e. an assessment of the "Functional Competency" of the candidate. According to this Court, the domain of the Board is circumscribed to the effect as to whether, notwithstanding the disability already certified and quantified under the Act of 2016, the candidate possesses the functional capacity, with or without reasonable accommodation and assistive technology, to pursue and complete the MBBS course. This is an assessment of capability to study medicine, not a re-assessment of the fact or extent of disability.

This precise question relating to the scope of a Disability/Medical Assessment Board constituted for admission to the medical course has engaged the attention of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in a consistent line of authority, beginning with Omkar Ramchandra Gond v. Union of India, reported in 2024 SCC OnLine SC 2860. In that case, the appellant, certified with 44-45% speech and language disability on account of a repaired bilateral cleft palate, had qualified NEET (U.G.)-2024 but was declared ineligible by the Disability Certification Centre solely on the ground that his quantified disability of 44-45% exceeded the then-prescribed ceiling under Appendix H-1 of the NMC's Graduate Medical Education Regulations. A Three-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court held that a quantified disability, by itself, cannot operate to disqualify a candidate; the Disability Assessment Board is instead required to record a positive, individualized finding on functional competency, namely, whether the disability, notwithstanding its quantification, would or would not stand in the way of the candidate pursuing the course, and to record reasons for any adverse conclusion. The Court further directed the Ministry concerned to require the NMC to reformulate its Regulations so as to move away from a rigid disability-percentage bar towards a functional classification of disability, consistent with the principle of reasonable accommodation.

The ratio in Omkar Ramchandra Gond (supra) was reiterated and applied by the Supreme Court in Om Rathod v. The Director General of Health Services and Others, reported in (2024) 19 SCC 70. The appellant therein, suffering from lower-limb myopathy quantified at 88% disability, having secured 601 marks in NEET (U.G.)-2024 and an All-India PwD rank of 84, was declared ineligible by successive Disability Assessment Boards at AIIMS Nagpur and AIIMS Delhi. The Supreme Court held that the principle of reasonable accommodation engrafted in Section 2(y) of the Act of 2016, read with Article 41 of the Constitution, necessarily means that a candidate cannot be disqualified merely on the basis of a benchmark quantification of disability, and that such a criterion, if applied mechanically, would be constitutionally impermissible. The Court found that neither Assessment Board had evaluated (i) the extent of the appellant's functional disability, or (ii) the extent to which assistive devices could bring that functional disability within permissible limits, and accordingly caused an independent expert assessment to be conducted, upon the strength of which the appellant was permitted to participate in counselling.

The principle was further reaffirmed in Anmol v. Union of India and Others, reported in 2025 SCC OnLine SC 387; (decided on 21.02.2025), where the Supreme Court, reversing the view taken by the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, that it could not substitute its opinion for that of the medical experts constituting the Assessment Board, held that judicial review does lie where an Assessment Board fails to conduct an individualized functional assessment, or where reasonable accommodation is denied to a benchmark-disabled candidate. The Supreme Court reiterated, citing Vikash Kumar v. Union Public Service Commission, reported in (2021) 5 SCC 370; that reasonable accommodation is not a matter of executive or medical discretion but a constitutionally-anchored obligation flowing from Articles 14 and 21, necessary to render the equality guarantee real and meaningful for persons with disabilities, and that the expectations and needs of every disabled person are unique to that individual and cannot be reduced to a mechanical percentage-based classification.

It is this very ratio that has been applied by a Co-ordinate Bench of this Court in the judgments cited by learned Counsel for the petitioner, namely, the Division Bench judgment dated 25.08.2026 in Somya Pal v. Union of India and Others, (Writ-C No. 33739 of 2026), wherein it was specifically held as follows:

We also find that even the Single Bench judgment dated 20.08.2026, in Shubham Rai v. Union of India and Others (Writ-C No. 8810 of 2026), and another Single Bench judgment dated 07.08.2025, in Maaz Ahmad v. Union of India and Others, reported in 2025 SCC OnLine All 4736; of this Court to be appropriate to the context and having a persuasive effect. Pertinently, in each of these cases, this Court, following the above line of Supreme Court authority, has held that a Medical Assessment Board constituted under the NMC Guidelines for admission to the MBBS course is not vested with the power to re-quantify or displace the percentage of disability already certified by the competent authority under Sections 56 and 57 of the Act of 2016, and that its jurisdiction is confined to certifying, upon an individualized functional assessment, whether the candidate, notwithstanding the disability so certified, is functionally competent, with or without reasonable accommodation, to pursue the medical course. We respectfully concur with, and consider ourselves bound by, the consistent view so taken.

Tested on the touchstone of the above authorities, the impugned "Eligibility Certificates" and the "Medical Opinions on Appellate Reassessment" cannot be sustained. It is not in dispute that the petitioner holds a subsisting, unrevoked Disability Certificate and UDID issued by the Chief Medical Officer, District concerned, which is the competent certifying authority under Section 57 of the Act of 2016, quantifying the petitioner's disability at 45%, comfortably above the 40% threshold prescribed by Clause 9.1 of the Guidelines dated 27.07.2026 for the PwBD category. Neither the Medical Assessment Board nor the Appellate Medical PwD Assessment Board was the certifying authority designated under Section 57, nor has either Board purported to exercise any power traceable to Sections 56 to 58 of the Act of 2016. In unilaterally scaling down the petitioner's certified disability from 45% to 20% and thereupon holding the petitioner "ineligible for PwD reservation"/"ineligible under PwBD category", both Boards travelled wholly outside the field entrusted to them under Chapter II of the Guidelines, namely, Functional Competency Assessment — and impermissibly encroached upon the exclusive statutory domain of the certifying authority under the Act of 2016. This constitutes a clear excess of jurisdiction.

We find no substance in the submission of learned Counsel for the respondents that the prescribed format itself carries a column for recording the percentage of disability, and that Clause 12.4 of the Guidelines governs the question of PwBD eligibility. The existence of a column in a form cannot confer substantive jurisdiction that the parent statute withholds; a Guideline framed by the NMC, a body exercising delegated, subject-specific regulatory authority in the field of medical education, must yield to, and be read consistently with, the plenary statutory scheme of the Act of 2016, and cannot be construed so as to arm a body other than the Section 57 certifying authority with the power to make a fresh determination of the extent of disability. Any clause of the Guidelines, including Clause 12.4, that purports to authorize the Assessment Board to re-determine the quantum of benchmark disability, rather than merely to record a reasoned, individualized opinion on functional competency, would be ultra vires the Act of 2016 and would also offend the guarantee of equality under Article 14 of the Constitution of India, inasmuch as it would subject a certified PwBD candidate to a second, uncanalised and standard-less determination capable of defeating a right already crystallized in the candidate's favour. In any case, this Court has itself examined clause 12.4 of the guidelines, which does not in any manner authorizes the assessment Board to quantity the percentage or makes it incumbent to give any reasons relating to the percentage of disability. Clause 12.4 of the guidelines may be profitably extracted as herein below:

Further, we are rather surprised that when clause 12.3(b) of the guidelines in specific terms declare that ‘No candidate shall be declared ineligible solely on the basis of the percentage of benchmark disability recorded in the UDID Card or disability certificate’, how the Assessment Board invent some deleterious tactics to declare a candidate ineligible by reducing the percentage of disability in its eligibility certificate.

Moreover, we may usefully record that it is significant that even the impugned Eligibility Certificates despite recording a reduced percentage, has found the petitioner "eligible for medical education" — that is, functionally competent to pursue the MBBS course. Once functional competency stands affirmatively recorded, the denial of the benefit of PwBD reservation, founded entirely on an unauthorized re-quantification of disability, cannot be permitted to stand, being both without jurisdiction and violative of the petitioner's rights under the Act of 2016 and Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

We accordingly hold that the conclusions "Ineligible for PwD Reservation" recorded in the Eligibility Certificates and "Ineligible under PwBD category" recorded in the Medical Opinion on Appellate Reassessment (as mentioned in the Table-A and Table-B, in paragraph no.1) are unsustainable in law and are liable to be quashed, without disturbing the finding of functional competency/eligibility for medical education recorded in the said Certificate and Opinion, which shall stand undisturbed and shall enure to the benefit of the petitioner.

For the reasons recorded above, all these three writ petition(s) succeeds and are, accordingly, allowed with the following directions :-

The writ petition is allowed in the above terms.

There shall be no order as to cost(s).