10-year study criterion for PG medical seats Necessary: Karnataka tells Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Karnataka government has strongly come out in defense of its decision to maintain the minimum ten-year study and Karnataka origin criterion for admission to postgraduate courses in medical and dental colleges of Karnataka for outsiders to the state. The government has made clear that funds used in the setting up of medical colleges in the state were altogether raised by the state itself with no help from the center, therefore benefits should also be accrued by those who belong to the state.

Defending its stand the government stated that the criterion imposition was also necessary to keep the requirement of skilled human resources maintained The state government proposes to set up 14 additional medical colleges in other districts and eight super-specialty hospitals. This is bound to create a huge requirement of specialists for these hospitals.

"Every year approximately Rs 2,000 crore is being spent on strengthening medical education in the state. The government of India is not assisting the state in establishing necessary infrastructure for post-graduate medical education and the entire manpower and infrastructure are being provided by the state," a government affidavit submitted in the stated.

"This being so, the state of Karnataka has every right to formulate eligibility conditions to give preference to candidates who are most likely to serve the state," the affidavit clarified.

The state government also made a mention of states like Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, and West Bengal having imposed similar eligibility conditions.

It State in its submission to the Supreme Court further maintained that maintained that these criteria would allow the merit candidates from Karnataka to pursue post-graduate education on subsidized seats and serve the state’s people.

The government in its court submission further emphasized the interest of medical and dental educational institutes being looked after as these conditions would ensure that specialist were churned out year after year to look after state interests.

Responding to a writ petition filed by Dr Kriti Lakhina and 39 others against the fresh notification by the Karnataka Examination Authority issued on March 10, the state government said the outside of state petitioners complaining of being deprived of seats in government medical and dental colleges should remember that 2,301 seats would still be available to them. Giving further statistics it said out of 3,435 specialist posts in 11,615 public healthcare institutions in the state, approximately, 1,312 posts are vacant. In educational institutions. Similarly, out of the 2,700 posts of specialists, 517 are vacant reported Deccan Herald.

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Out of the total 39 medical colleges in the state 16 are run by the state.

With 970 senior resident posts, 524 are vacant in these institutions. "If these posts remained vacant beyond stipulation by the Medical Council of India, de-recognition looms large with the risk of jeopardizing future of both undergraduate and postgraduate students studying in these colleges," it said.

The state government weakening the claims of outsiders further stated that the doctors, belonging to other parts of the country, cannot make any legal claims on the basis that they have graduated from the state’s medical-dental colleges.

Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported that the Medical Council of India in its counter-argument had opposed the move and stated that Postgraduate medical seats in government colleges are numbered and therefore are not to be subject to conditions. The State and the MCI have been directed by the bench to file individual responses.

Read Also: MCI Against Karnataka PG Medical Admission Criteria- Supreme Court informed