SC quashed removal of institutional quota in BHU - AMU

The Supreme Court on Wednesday restored 50% institutional preference in admission to PG medical courses.

A Vacation Bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan, which had reserved its verdict on Tuesday, set aside the Allahabad High Court’s May 29 order quashing the 50% institutional quota in admission to PG medical courses.


After this order, Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and government-run medical colleges in Uttar Pradesh can go ahead with counselling for admission to PG medical courses and fill up seats by June 12, the top court said.

Acting on a PIL, the high court had on May 29 allowed filling up the 50 per cent institutional quota seats in PG medical courses at BHU and AMU for students from any medical college based on their NEET ranking.

The top court’s order came on petitions filed by BHU and AMU, which had challenged the high court’s order contending it went against an earlier verdict of the top court as also Medical Council of India regulations that permitted them to fill 50% seats from their own institution. MCI had supported BHU and AMU, saying the high court misinterpreted the regulations.

On behalf of BHU, Additional Solicitor-General Maninder Singh had sought immediate stay on the high court’s order.

“The entire apple cart cannot be reversed by re-opening those 50 per cent seats for students selected through the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET),” Singh had said.

Singh had cited the top court’s verdict in the Saurabh Chaudhary case that laid down guidelines for PG medical admission and emphasised that only half the seats were to be filled through all-India quota. If the institutional preference for 50 per cent seats were done away with, what would happen to other premier institutes like the AIIMS and the PGI, Chandigarh, he added.

Senior advocate Salman Khurshid, representing AMU, had demanded stay on the HC verdict, saying some students had already been admitted by the university under the 50% quota. Out of 195 seats for PG medical courses in AMU, admissions against 149 were over and everything could not be reversed, he said.

Source: The Tribune

Ms Kiran Bedi pushes for admissions to PG medical course

Puducherry Lt Governor Kiran Bedi visited Centralised Admission Committee (Centac) office much to the surprise of officers there. She visited the office on the day of third counselling after receiving a number of complaints that self-financing institutions are continuing to reject demand drafts by candidates who went by the fee structure announced by the fee committee and the vacancy list has not been released on the Centac website for government quota seats.
She became furious identifying ‘glaring flaws in processes of seat allocations’ shouted at officers present there and asked them to immediately present papers related to seat allocation.

Knowing that 71 seats are still vacant under government quota for students who qualified Neet examination, the Lt Governor shouted at the officers saying that they have ‘betrayed’ the students of Puducherry by pre-updating the vacant number of seats before completing the counselling process.

Ms Bedi, who visited the office around 9.30 in the morning continued her inspection till 6.30 pm. Despite Centac officials’ plea that they have to consider secretary of health before making an order, the Lt Governor issued an order directing the Centac to conduct counselling on Wednesday to fill vacant seats and strictly asked them to rescind the seats diverted from government quota to management quota if any.

Much to the relief of students, Ms Bedi asked private medical colleges to admit students following the fee structure recommended. Ms Bedi threatened the officers to suspend them if they were not ready to present in the office of Centac on the day of counselling on Wednesday.

Following her visit, R. Babu, secretary of health department directed Centac to report the seats allocated and those vacant on a daily basis.