Notices to Centre, state on boards for disabled
Times News Network

New Delhi: The Delhi high court has directed the the central and state governments to produce a copy of the notification regarding medical boards required to be constituted under the latest Act on disability.

Earlier, the court had advanced the hearing on public interest litigation (PIL) regarding disability certificates, after the petitioner argued that a protracted case would only prolong the problems of the physically challenged.

Nearly two lakh people with disabilities were finding it difficult to obtain certificates required for employment, reliefs or admissions to educational institutions, since there were very few medical boards, argued Social Jurist, the lawyers’ group which filed the petition.

The PIL had sought a direction to the government to set up medical boards, authorized to disburse such certificates, in each hospital and make them accessible to physically challenged people.

Social Jurist alleged that the few medical boards that existed were not easily accessible. Worse, the boards sometimes return a request asking the physically challenged person to come back later.

Source: The Times of India
Dated 16th July, 2002