Review medical test for aspirants, court tells CRPF

NEW DELHI - The Delhi High Court has asked the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) to review a four-decade-old policy on constituting medical boards for screening job seekers.

Justice Geeta Mittal and Justice J.R. Midha passed the order after noting that in several cases, candidates have wrongly been declared unfit in view of the absence of experts from different fields in the medical board.

It said that during recruitments, the forces have been engaged in constituting medical boards consisting of people having no expertise at all in the medical field involved.

“We have found that a board of experts constituted under our orders has differed in their reports with the certification of medical unfitness of a candidate by a review or appeal medical board which did not include a specialist” said the bench.

The bench made the observation while disposing a petition filed by Kamlesh Kumar Kamal, who was declared unfit for the post of assistant commandant in the CRPF, but was later selected after he submitted a fitness certificate given by experts at a civil hospital following an intervention by the court.

“This fact by itself manifests that the respondents and authorities need to re-look at the policy framed almost four decades ago,” the bench said, asking them to place before it the compliance report within six months.

The court also expressed its anguish over the authorities accepting a certificate given by a doctor without having expertise in respective field.

“We are unable to comprehend to as to how a doctor not trained in the field can given a certification for existence of a condition for which he does not have specialisation or training. It is also unfortunate the authorities accept such certification without taking the opinion of the specialist,” the bench said.