Admit all medical students as per merit: SC to Maharashtra govt

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday told Maharashtra government that the admissions to the post-graduate medical and dental courses would be as per the Neet merit regardless of the category a candidate may belong to. Refusing to interfere with the order passed by the top court on June 4, 2019, the vacation bench of Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Ajay Rastogi said it was “absolutely clear and requires no clarification.” Declining two applications seeking clarification/ modification of June 4, order, the vacation bench said that the seats under the scrapped economically weaker section quota that are now available in the general category “will be filled-up as per the merit in Neet in accordance with the order” of June 4, 2019. “There can be no question of exclusion of any meritorious candidate irrespective of the category, provided the candidates get cut-off marks as required for the general category,” the court added.

The court said this as a lawyer appearing for a candidate who was earlier accommodated under the EWS quota told the court that though he could on his own merit get admitted to post-graduate course but was not being called for the counseling that is underway in pursuance to June 4, 2019, order.

The lawyer said that there were 2100 candidates who are being deprived of the opportunity to be admitted to PG courses as they have been excluded from the counseling to fill the seats to PG courses under the general category.

At the outset of the hearing, Justice Banerjee wondered how could there be an exclusion under the general category of the students belonging to other categories.

The top court had on June 4 directed the Maharashtra government to carry out re-counselling of the admissions to the post-graduate medical and dental courses in the State under the general category.

The court had directed the re-counselling had taken exception that the reshuffle of admissions in pursuance to its May 30/31 order was done without taking the counseling route.  

Directing the re-counselling of the candidates for PG seats under the general category, a vacation bench of Justice Indu Malhotra and Justice M. R. Shah in June 4 had said that the admissions would be made in accordance with the Neet merit list and no changes would be allowed in the preferences given by the candidates at the time of filing the application in March.

By the June 4 order, the top court had also prohibited all the court from entertaining any petition or applications relating to the admission to the post-graduate medical course in Maharashtra.

The two application made today wanted that the choice of medical stream should be left open to the candidates without limiting them to the options they had given in the forms submitted by the candidates in March this year.

In the other application, it was contended that the exclusion of all the courts from entertaining plea on admissions to PG course would come in the way of the heading on the applicability of Maratha reservation statutorily called reservation for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC).

As court today found no ambiguity in the June 4 order, it declined both the applications for clarification/ modification.