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

With the Council directing completion of counseling and admission process by August 31, any floundering on that is likely to result in seats being left vacant in both government and private medical colleges.

Vijayawada: The High Court of Hyderabad having set aside para 5(2) of GO 550 has paved way for admissions into medical colleges of Andhra Pradesh and the Telangana states.

An earlier story done by Medical Dialogues reported that an Andhra Pradesh Government Order(GO), mandated filling of vacancy of a medical seat by a student from the reserved category, only if the vacancy arose due to the decision of the student from the reserved category to move from the seat secured by him in open category. However, the implementation of it was stayed by a High Court division bench.

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

Giving final decision, 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.

With the court finally setting aside the order completely, the state government is now contemplating moving the Supreme Court. With this university is still finding its hands tied regarding the process of counselling

Speaking to TNIE, S Appala Naidu, Registrar,NTRUHS, confirmed, "It is the State government's decision to implement GO 550, but the High Court has issued clear instructions to drop it, as the reserved quota is exceeding 50 per cent and unreserved students are losing the opportunity. On the verdict of High Court, the State government officials are discussing whether to file a petition in the Supreme Court or not. We are expecting the release of notification for the second phase of counseling this week."

The university is in the process of holding talks with the state government regarding the filing of a petition in the Supreme Court on the HC stay on GO 550. The university authorities will take a call on the counselling process after the state authorities take a decision on the filing of the writ in the SC.

Having said that With the Council directing completion of counseling and admission process by August 31, any floundering on that is likely to result in seats being left vacant in both government and private medical colleges.

In order to avoid the above, it becomes necessary that if the state files a writ in the Supreme court, the verdict is pronounced at least 10 days before the last date of admissions. A delay in the verdict might result in the counseling process not getting completed and a large number of students losing the opportunity of getting medical college admissions.

On July 30, 2001, the then government issued GO RT 550 on seat allotment in professional courses. The government order stated that the open category seats are to be filled first on the basis of merit. irrespective of the reservation category.Its only after the open category seats were allocated were the reserved seats to be considered.

The order also clarified that if a reserved category candidate was allotted an open category merit seat and left the reserved seat for better opportunities, the vacancy generated was to be filled by a candidate from the same reserved category on merit basis.