The Court of Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (CCPD) has issued notice to the Delhi-based central medical institutions, Safdarjung Hospital and VMM College, for allegedly denying teaching job to a disabled doctor despite her clearing an exam and interview for the post.
A wheelchair user with a 70 per cent disability due to multiple sclerosis Dr Nonita Gangwani, an MD in physiology, teaches the subject at a medical college in Ghaziabad. She had applied for the post of Senior Resident under the General Category on a regular basis in the physiology department of VMM College and Safdarjung Hospital.
However, even after clearing the written exam and interview and selected in 2019, she has now been declared unfit by the hospital medical board based on her disability. Taking up her case, Doctors with Disabilities group had written to Unions Ministers Thawarchand Gehlot and Harsh Vardhan as well as the CCPD.
Now, the CCPD under the Union Social and Welfare Ministry in a notice dated February 24, to the MS of the Safdarjung Hospital and VMMC directed them to submit their comments to the court within fifteen days along with the reservation roaster from the year 1996 till date.
It reminded the medical institutions about the "Section 75 of the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities Act (RPDA), 2016 that mandates the CCPD on its own motion or on application of any aggrieved person or otherwise to look into the complaints inter-alia, with respect to matters relating to deprivation of PwDs."
Dr Satendra Singh from Doctors with Disabilities said that Dr Nonita had applied for the post of Senior Resident under the General Category on a regular basis in the physiology department of New Delhi's VMM College and Safdarjung Hospital.
"She cleared the written exam and interview and was selected in 2019. Yet three months and two medical assessments later she has been found unfit by the hospital medical board based on her disability."