Telangana: Appeal filed against NTR university over GO 550, counselling remains delayed

Hyderabad: A student K. Urjitha Yadav of Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh has filed a review petition before the Hyderabad High Court on the recent judgement over maintenance of 50:50 ratio between merit and reserved candidates in professional colleges (including MBBS admissions). Urjitha Yadav in his petition filed complained of gross injustice having been done to the reserved candidates due to faulty implementation of GO 550.

The petitioner alleged that NTR University of Health Sciences had given contradictory information to the HC and the students.

The petitioner mentioned that NTRUHS authorities had told the High Court that reserved candidates were crossing over the 50% quota limit of seats meant for the reserved and entering the 50% terrain meant to be reserved for the meritorious candidates.

While at the same time in a reply to a query under the Right to Information Act, had gone ahead to state that students belonging to the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and the Backward Classes had lost a lot of seats because the meritorious reserved candidates were being represented in the reserved category, despite having earned seats in the open category reported the HINDU.

The Medical Dialogues had recently reported that the court clearly ruled that if a meritorious reserved candidate (MRC) prefers to abandon his open category seat and slides down to a seat in a college of his choice using his reservation facility, then the seat vacated by him should be filled by an open category candidate and not by a reserved category candidate.

Read also: Hyderabad HC quashes GO 550 clause, state contemplating to move SC

The bench that stayed the said GO Ms 550 para 5(2) comprised of Justice T. Rajani and Justice V. Ramasubramanian.

The bench issued the stay in response to a petition filed by Harshvardhan and others. The petitioners while pleading to the court stated that some reserved category students on the basis of their NEET ranking were allotted seats falling in open category (non-reserved), to which they said they had no objections. However, what they had reservations about was the fact that these students after the allotment had moved to another town and college, leaving the seats already allotted to them vacant, with a question mark on who the seats were to be now allotted.

Read also: Government Order on medical seat vacancy stayed by Hyderabad HC

Meanwhile, counseling in Telangana seems to have severely affected the future of many a student from the region. While other states have released revised notifications and schedules for the second round of counseling for admissions to medical and dental colleges on the basis of National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), Telangana aspirants are yet to hear from Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences.

The 369 seat matrix released by the university last Friday, for the Counselling second phase has the university silent on when the counselling is likely to begin.

Speaking to the media, Dr B Karunakar Reddy, VC, Health varsity, granted the delay to Medical Council of India(MCI) not sent the details of the leftover seats from all-India quota.

He added that the schedule would be released in a couple of days.

However, aspirants hold the university responsible for the delay in the release of schedule under pressure from the government which wants to approach the SC over the implementation of GO No. 550. "The apex court may not even admit the petition because it has itself given the go-ahead for the resumption of counseling. But if it does, then a lot of students, particularly those who did not get seats in the first round, will be affected," said an aspirant to TNIE.