Medical admission: SC refuses hearing, asks Madras HC to decide

New Delhi: The Supreme Court refused to entertain a plea against a Tamil Nadu government order reserving 85 percent of seats in MBBS (bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery) and BDS (bachelor of dental surgery) courses for the state board students and only 15 percent for those of other boards, including the CBSE.

A bench comprising chief justice J.S. Khehar and justice D.Y. Chandrachud asked the petitioner, father of a medical aspirant, to approach the Madras High Court which is already hearing pleas against the state government order.

The apex court asked petitioner R. Nakkiran, represented by senior advocate Nalini Chidambaram, to withdraw the plea and either file a fresh one or intervene in the pending matter before the Madras High Court.

“We request the High Court to expedite the hearing in the case,” the bench said, adding that the matter is very urgent as counselling for the admissions is about to begin.

CBSE conducts National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to MBBS and BDS courses across the country in which 85 percent seats are reserved for domiciles of states where medical colleges are located and the remaining seats go to students hailing from other state.

Tamil Nadu government, however, passed an order on 22 June saying that 85% seats in MBBS and BDS courses would be allocated to those who have passed their 12th examination conducted by the state board and only 15 percent seats would be given to those who cleared the test from other boards including CBSE.

Chidambaram submitted that the matter needed urgent hearing as the counselling begins from Friday and moreover, the government order has created a lot of problems to students who have passed 12th examination from other boards.

Earlier, the High Court had issued notices to the health and family welfare department’s secretary, medical education’s additional director, the selection committee’s secretary and the Medical Council of India (MCI) on a separate plea challenging the government order.

The High Court, however, had declined to grant any interim stay on the government’s order on the plea filed by one Darnish Kumar and two others. The petitioners had submitted that the apex court has clearly stated that when admission is based on entrance examination NEET, it should make no difference whether the qualifying examination is conducted by the state board or Central Board of Secondary Education because no discrimination can be made between the schools affiliated to both the boards.

They had further stated that once a common merit list is prepared for the purpose of grant of admission to MBBS and BDS courses based on NEET results, the only permissible reservation was in favour of students who have studied in schools located within Tamil Nadu. Therefore, it is impermissible for distribution of seats on the basis of the school board and therefore such segregation of seats would amount to discrimination among students, they had said.