Maharashtra Medical Admissions: SC postpones hearing

Mumbai: A postponement of the final hearing by the Supreme Court of a petition regarding admissions to deemed universities and private institutes on Tuesday, is in all likelihood to delay the September 30 deadline, of completing the admission process for academic year 2016-17.

The arguments on the petition lasted for two hours, with the lawyers stressing on the fact that pending admissions would affect the futures of medical aspirants.

According to Dr Pravin Shingare, Director,Directorate medical Education and Research (DMER), the deadline set by the Supreme Court in April 2016, for completion of the admission process was bound to get delayed further.

The petition under argument at the Supreme Court was filed on September 7. It included deemed universities in the common admission process for the current year. The DMER has its hands full at present, with finishing the final round of admissions, to private medical and dental institutes, as well as allocation of vacant seats under the 15% all India quota from government run medical and dental institutes, in the state.As per the schedule released by the DMER, the last date for finishing this process has been fixed for September 28.

Meanwhile, parents of medical aspirants from the state of Maharashtra met the Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis, on Monday, to ask for an extension on the date of counselling given by the Bombay High Court, which met its end on Monday.The deadline was for conduction of centralized admission processes in private colleges. The parents asked for the extension with the hope that the DMER would get an an opportunity to fill more seats.Their request was submitted to the CM in his Mantralaya office. However, they were not sure whether their request would be taken seriously, as the minister did not give any assurance.

The parental request included mandatory extension of C A % seats for Maharashtra domicile students in private and deemed university colleges.

They expressed anxiety and stated that they wanted maximum seats to be filled by the students of the state and it would be grave injustice if outsiders were given the opportunity said Shobha Lande, a parent.