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Tamil Nadu to Appeal Scrapping of Domicile-Based Quota

Chennai: A revision petition would soon be filed to appeal against the Supreme Court’s contention that domicile-based reservation in PG medical seats was unconstitutional as the removal of the 50 per cent quota for students from Tamil Nadu in MD, MS and postgraduate diploma courses would deprive 1207 students of their opportunities to pursue higher education in medicine and surgery, State Health Minister M Subramanian said.

Addressing the media at the Secretariat on Thursday, Subramanian, referring to the verdict of a three-member bench of the Supreme Court on a case relating to PG medical admissions in the Union Territory of Chandigarh, said that implementing the order would interfere with the 69 per cent reservation followed in the State, known for its social justice, and take away the State’s right for education.

The Minister recalled an earlier attempt by the Union Government in 2020 to remove reservations for super specialty medical courses for the States and said Chief Minister M K Stalin had wanted the restoration of the old system of quota-based admission for under graduate, post graduate and super specialty medical courses and DMK MP and Senior Advocate P Wilson fought the case in court and won it.

Subsequently, in 2022, the reservation of admission to PG medical courses for Tamil Nadu government doctors was also restored, Subramanian said, adding that taking away the State’s right to admit 50 per cent of the students from the State to PG courses of medicine was not fair because the expenses for setting up the colleges and running them were borne by the State Government.

Anyway, the State was even otherwise giving 50 percent of the seats for the all-India quota with regard to PG admissions and 15 percent seats for the all-India allocation in undergraduate medical courses, he said.

So after discussing the matter with the Chief Minister and consulting experts, the government would move the Supreme Court by filing a revision petition, the Minister said, exuding the hope that the admissions for the coming academic year would not be affected by the court verdict as two rounds of counselling had already been completed and many students had started attending classes.

( Source : Deccan Chronicle )
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