What would happen in a world run by pigs? Merit would be measured by who snorts the loudest, roots the deepest and wallows in the finest mud. This isn’t satire – it mirrors our reality. Merit is always defined by those in power.Take the example of the admission process set up by the National Medical Commission (NMC), which mandates that even after qualifying the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for Undergraduate courses (NEET-UG), persons with disabilities are required to undergo a case-by-case evaluation of their “functional competence to navigate academic and practical requirements.” Inevitably, this assessment is conducted by able-bodied doctors who not only lack lived experience of disability but often bring their ableist biases into the evaluation rooms.Kabir Paharia’s JourneyKabir Paharia, a young man from the Scheduled Caste community and a person with benchmark disability (PwBD) has a congenital absence of multiple fingers on both hands – specifically, the index and middle fingers on the right, and the index, middle, and ring fingers on the left – along with the absence of the second and third toes on his left foot. Despite these permanent locomotor disabilities (quantified at 68%), Kabir scored a remarkable score of 542/720 in NEET-UG 2024. His rank was 176 in the SC-PwBD category, well within the merit cut-off.Yet, he was denied admission – not because of poor academic performance or lack of seats – but because VMMC-Safdarjung Hospital, a designated Disability Certification Centre, issued a one-line verdict: “The candidate is not eligible to pursue medical courses as per NMC norms.”This judgment – without any detailed, functional assessment – was upheld in two rounds of litigation by the Delhi High Court, despite Kabir’s evident merit.Functional Assessment, Not Box-TickingIt was only after reaching the Supreme Court that Kabir was finally given a chance to be functionally evaluated, not theoretically excluded. A fresh five-member Medical Board at AIIMS, New Delhi was constituted, comprising experts in neurology, orthopedics, hospital administration, physiology and rehabilitation medicine.What followed was a comprehensive simulation-based assessment – a rarity in such cases and a testament to how law and medicine can work together when guided by judicial vision. Kabir was asked to perform a range of practical medical tasks in a controlled setting. He executed all of them successfully. The only difficulty he faced was in wearing sterilised surgical gloves – not due to his disability, but because of glove designs that assumed the presence of all fingers. The board noted this challenge as “minor” and easily remediable through adaptive glove design or technique. An occupational therapist also confirmed Kabir’s complete independence in daily living activities.In Pradeep Jain v. Union of India, the Supreme Court warned against an arid, abstract notion of merit divorced from structural inequality, famously noting that “one law for the lion and the ox is oppression.”True equality, the court explained, depends not merely on the absence of disabilities but on the presence of abilities and requires legal standards to recognise difference without prejudice.Instead of acknowledging Kabir’s struggles in excelling within a system not built for him, his difference was met with ableist prejudices – both by medical assessment boards and the lower courts. Their analysis lacked not only sensitivity but also a recognition of merit that accounts for differential positionalities.The more damaging aspect of ableist systems is that they are usually couched in the language of objectivity, like the NMC norms. When medical assessment boards issue a verdict, it is cloaked in technical credibility. This strengthens the presumption that the assessment is accurate. For a lawyer, especially in front of mostly able-bodied judges, proving that the process is flawed by prejudice becomes an uphill task.Enforcement FatigueKabir underwent three rounds of assessment, fought two levels of litigation and waited nearly a year for a decision that should have been evident from the outset. Every time he was asked to “prove” his capability, it stemmed not from doubt about his academic ability, but from systemic hesitation to accommodate.This is the fatigue of enforcement – where the burden to enforce rights drains the very individuals those rights are meant to protect. It is a lived reality in educational litigation. And one cannot even argue that Kabir’s case was novel.In Om Rathod v. Director General of Health Services (2024) and Anmol v. Union of India & Ors. (2025), the Supreme Court dealt with similar failures: academically deserving students with disabilities rejected under NMC’s rigid guidelines, assessed by panels that emphasised impairment over functionality. In both cases, the court had to step in, order functional reassessments, and grant seats to candidates who should never have been denied them in the first place.The fact that the Supreme Court has had to reiterate the same principles again and again is not a sign of legal evolution – it reflects institutional inertia and a failure to internalise empathy and implement inclusion.This is a type of harm statutes do not always capture, but lawyers must. It is not only about knowing Articles 14, 15, and 21 of the Constitution. It is about understanding what it means for a young student to keep showing up, again and again, with the same marks, the same evidence, and the same capability – only to be told it still isn’t enough because the system doesn’t know how to read it differently.For educational lawyers, the lesson is clear: merit is not just about marks and advocacy is not just about precedent, it is about having the sensitivity to understand the fatigue of enforcement. It is about fighting massive institutions and their inertia, putting in relentless effort to secure timely reliefs, before the living promise of Article 21A of the Constitution (right to education), and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, becomes a dead letter.A Note to Educational Institutions and LawyersThe Supreme Court has now directed that Kabir be admitted to AIIMS Delhi in the 2025–26 session, without having to reappear for NEET-UG and has also ordered the NMC to revise its eligibility guidelines within two months.These directions are not only about Kabir, they are a warning to regulators: systems of exclusion will not survive constitutional scrutiny and reasonable accommodation is not a favour, it is a legal duty.Educational lawyers are trained to study and cite statutes, sectoral regulations and precedent. But unless they understand the enforcement fatigue caused to the candidates and their families, the often understated cost of antagonism between students and educational institutions, the coercive power and inbuilt prejudices of educational institutions and regulatory authorities, their expertise is incomplete.Anchal Bhatheja is a Research Fellow at the Vidhi Center for Legal Policy and a Consultant at Mission Accessibility.