PG medical aspirants can appear for 3rd round counselling: Karnataka High Court

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court on Saturday held that the candidates who have already participated in the first two rounds of counselling for the PG Medical/Dental offline seats are eligible to participate in the third round as well.

However, they are directed to pay a certain amount of penalty as per the latest clause of the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) but High Court also has made it clear that the 'penalty' will be subject to its final orders

The court was hearing a special hearing a case with regard to the PG medical offline seat allotments. Abhishek Mansabdar, and two other students had approached the High Court alleging that KEA was not allowing them to participate in the third round of counselling as they had participated in the earlier rounds.However, the KEA submitted before the High Court it had issued a new notification on May 25, 2017 allowing "even those candidates who have participated in the first and second round counselling" to "participate in the third round, subject to clause-6 of the eligibility."

Clause-6 says that if there is any upgradation and vacant seats are left unfilled, then penalty has to be paid. The advocate for the candidates argued that the payment of the penalty is unreasonable and they were asked to pay the penalty for no fault of theirs. KEA sought time to file objections to this in order to justify Clause-6.

The court said that with the new notification all students are eligible for participation in the third round and "They are permitted to appear in the mop-up/third round subject to the notifications, eligibility, etc." However the question of penalty still remains. The court said that if the candidates are asked to pay the penalty they should pay it up. But the payment will be subject to the final orders of the High Court in these cases.