Karnataka: Stay on PG seats 2nd counselling round

The second round of counseling, which is about to start for filling of seats for postgraduate medical courses till May 2 has been stayed by the Karnataka High Court.

The court action has happened due to the petition filed by Dr. Rahul Gawalkar and 31 others. A division bench of Justice S Sunil Dutt Yadav and Justice B S Patil, on Friday, passed an interim order directing the Karnataka Examination Authority, Medical Council of India and Directorate of Medical Education to abstain from holding of counseling till May 2.

The petitioners’ Counsel Doreraj argued that if the 2^nd round of counseling was carried out without reversal of seats from central government quota and they not being put back into the pool of allotment, the petitioner option to choose the specialty of their choice would get affected severely.

On the Directive of Director, Medical Education, present in the court, the Additional Government, Advocate, Shivaprabhu S Hiremath made a submission that the matter was pending before the Supreme Court and involved the question of the reversion of Central Government Quota seats, and was listed for hearing on May 1.

He further submitted that based on the Apex Court judgment, appropriate action in accordance with law would be taken, and until then the second round of counselling was to be deferred.

The court observed that though several questions had been raised in the writ petitions, “We are of the view that seat sharing arrangement made by publishing seat matrix by the state government prima facie cannot be upset at this stage because the first round of counselling has already been completed and the process of second round of counselling is about to commence”, reported TNIE.

However, going back to the petitioner grievance the advocate said that without the leftover seats from the Central Government Quota reverted back into the pool for allotment, through the second round of counseling, the petitioner options for different subjects of their choice would be reduced, had to be kept in mind.