HC Upset With the ‘Local’ Criteria Adopted by KNRUHS

Hyderabad:The Telangana High Court expressed its displeasure over the rigid stance adopted by Kaloji Narayana Rao University for Health Sciences (KNRUHS) on the definition of ‘local’ in admissions to MBBS and BDS courses.

As the university refused to consider a ‘state recommended’ military school student as a local candidate, the High Court asked the state government to intervene and consider the student as a local candidate.

A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J. Sreenivas Rao, was dealing with a petition filed by Chepuri Avinash, who did his schooling from class 8 to 10 in Rashtriya Indian Military School at Dehradun, following the selection and recommendations of the Telangana government to the military school from the state quota. Further, he completed his intermediate course in Telangana. During the admissions of MBBS, the university refused to treat him as a local candidate, stating that his last four years of study were not in Telangana.

Two days ago, while dealing with his petition, the court opined that it is a genuine case for consideration as a local candidate and asked the university to consider accordingly. However, the counsel for the university on Thursday informed them of their inability to treat Avinash as a local candidate.

Reacting to it, the bench expressed displeasure and wondered how the university did not consider a state-nominated student as a local candidate. The bench felt that the issue must be deeply looked into by the state government. The Chief Justice bench asked the additional advocate general Imran Khan to discuss the case with the government and suggested that he use his good offices as the student cannot lose his admission. The court directed Imran Khan to inform the government stand on the issue on Friday.