New Delhi, Sept. 25: The Supreme Court has directed a Tripura medical college and teaching hospital to admit two aspiring doctors with colour vision deficiency, a milder form of colour blindness, exercising its extraordinary powers under Article 142 to pass the order.

The court said it was "keeping in view the transcendental importance of justice", making it clear that it was "invoking" this "jurisdiction", as it ordered Tripura Medical College & Dr B.R. Ambedkar Teaching Hospital to admit the two as MBBS students for the academic year 2018-19.

The directive came in a recent order after the bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices Amitava Roy and A.M. Khanwilkar had gone through a report submitted by an expert committee.

"Appreciating the objections of the Medical Council of India and the college in proper perspective and keeping in view the transcendental importance of justice which is writ large in this case, we direct that the appellants shall be admitted in the MBBS course in the respondent No. 2 (the college) for the academic year 2018-2019...," the bench said.

"We may hasten to add that we have used the words 'transcendental importance of justice', as it conveys that we are invoking our jurisdiction under Article 142 of the Constitution of India in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case."

The article vests the top court with powers to pass any order, directive, decree or judgment in any matter to render complete justice even if such a directive is in conflict with any rule or law that is in force.

Pranay Kumar Podder and Sagar Bhowmick had moved the apex court after the medical council refused to allow them to undergo counselling in 2015 for medical studies in Tripura on the ground that they suffered from colour blindness. Both had cleared medical entrance exams.

The American Optometric Association defines colour vision deficiency (CVD) as the inability to distinguish between certain shades of colours, such as red and green, or blue and yellow. People who are fully colour blind can only see the world in black, white and shades of grey.

Podder and Bhowmick had earlier appealed in Tripura High Court, which had declined to interfere with the MCI's decision.

On March 23 this year the apex court directed that a committee be set up, including representatives from the medical council and experts from outside the MCI from the fields of genetics, ophthalmology, psychiatry and medical education. The court asked the committee to submit a report on whether such students could be allowed to study medicine.

After perusing the report submitted by the committee, the court said: "In this context colour blindness has been dealt (with by the committee) adequately as an impediment, but colour vision deficiency does not have any embargo of any type whatsoever."

The court recorded the submission of Vikas Singh, the senior counsel for the MCI, that persons suffering from colour vision deficiency should be permitted to sit for medical entrance exams and admitted as MBBS students if they qualified.

Singh, however, contended that certain guidelines needed to be framed in accordance with the committee's report for regulating admissions to speciality and super-speciality courses as far as this category (CVD) was concerned.

Senior advocate K.V. Vishwanathan and advocate Shoeb Alam, who assisted the court as amicus curiae, urged the bench to allow the appellants to take admission this year if seats were vacant.

The apex court, after recording the submissions of various counsel, directed that Podder and Bhowmick be admitted as students of the Agartala institute next year.