50-50 sharing of state medical seats in Gujarat

Ahmedabad: The Supreme Court in its effort to grant interim relief to NEET PG aspirants, raising voices against Gujarat University’s decision to give preferential treatment to its students, applying for post graduate courses, has ordered a 50:50 ratio among the GU and non GU students. It implies that while GU can render preferential treatment to 25% seats, the other 25% will be allotted on merit. The admission process for PG seats should be over by May 31, according to a court directive. While the Non GU university students have praised the order, the GU students have expressed unhappiness over it.

A final year MBBS student of Kutch University, is one of the students who had filed the petition challenging GU’s preferential admission process. He said, “We are very happy with SC’s decision as it will put an end to disparity in selection process.” Giving a reason for calling the preferential admission process unfair, the student said, “Under that process, if I have scored more than a GU student in the NEET exam, I would still lose my seat to him. The GU student would have been able to get admission to the course of his choice while I would have had to choose from what is left. That defeated the whole purpose of NEET which is to allow meritorious students get admission to good colleges. Now, I will be able to secure admission on my own merit.”

However, GU students said that the court order put them at a distinct disadvantage. A final year BJ Medical College’s MBBS student ,which is affiliated to GU, told Mirror, “The university preference system was prevalent since 1990. There was no need to change it all of a sudden. We were not prepared for the admission system to change so suddenly. To be honest, admission process should never be so unstable.” He stated that it was unfair to change such major policies at the last moment.

“This is happening after the exams have been conducted, results are out and counselling is supposed to begin in a few weeks. If the change was to be made, students should have had the opportunity to adapt to it,” said the student. The legal tangle had stalled the admission process. Students hope that with the SC order, the admission process will resume soon." Dr Dipti Shah, Dean of LG Medical College (GU) said, “The Court has tried to keep the situation balanced so that students from both the sides remain satisfied. We will have to accept the SC’s decision. The Committee for PG admissions has already been formed but everything had been kept on hold because the decision was awaited. The process is likely to get restarted in a week.”

Nine non-GU students challenging Gujarat University’s (GU) decision to give preference to its own students have filed the case. It was first filed in the Gujarat High Court where it was quashed. The next hearing of the case has been scheduled for August 9 and the decision is subject to modification.

Eight universities, including GU, offer medical courses. In the NEET-PG exam conducted between December 5 and 13, 2016, as many as 711 GU students and 859 non-GU students cleared .

Presently, 50% of the seats of all universities including GU are under their individual control, in which they give preference to their own students over those of other universities. The remaining 50% seats are under all-India quota.

Large scale protests ensued across the state last month by both GU as well as non-GU students, on matters related to the issue of PG seat division, reports Ahmedabad Mirror.