MCI amendment on PG admissions challenged in Madras HC

Chennai: The Madras High Court sought the stands of the Centre and the Medical Council of India on a plea against a March 10 notification providing for common counselling for the PG medical seats in all institutions.

A bench of justices S Nagamuthu and Dr Anita Sumanth issued notices to the Centre and the MCI, seeking their stands on the plea by the city based SRM (Deemed) University.

In an interim order on the petition by the deemed medical university, the bench also asked authorities not to disturb 59 students, admitted to the university before issuance of the notification.

The court, however, made their admissions subject to the outcome of the petition and posted the matter for further hearing on April 26.

The university in its petition said the MCI on March 10 this year amended the Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2000, adding Regulation 9A relating to the common counselling and issued the notification.

The Union Ministry of Health subsequently directed all the deemed universities to be the part of the common counselling for admission in Post Graduate courses and to surrender 50 per cent of their seats to the government quota.

The petitioner said there have been no seat sharing arrangement between the state government and the deemed universities, either for the Under Graduate or the Post Graduate courses till now.

Citing the Supreme Court orders, including that in the T M Pai case, the petitioner said it has been held that the seat sharing arrangement should be voluntary and cannot be enforced on the deemed universities.

It pleaded to the court to declare Regulation 9A as unconstitutional and violative of the Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution.

The petitioner also submitted that 59 students were admitted by the university, based on NEET (National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test) rank list and the process had been completed on March 3 last before the amendment was made.

Hence no retrospective effect could be given to the amendment and it cannot effect admissions made prior to the date on which it came into force, it said.

If the admissions were undone, selected students who had remitted fees and joined the courses would be 'seriously affected,' the University said.