HC issues notice to state on Sri Guru Ram Das University of Health Sciences plea

Chandigarh: Sri Guru Ram Das University of Health Sciences, Amritsar, moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court, claiming its right to make admissions, as it now enjoyed the status of a private university. It reiterated its stand that the government's claim to 50% of its seat under the government quota could not be applicable to the universities admission process.

The Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Sudhir Mittal issued a notice of motion to the state government and Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) on taking up the petition filed by the university through senior advocates APS Sandhu, RPS Bara and Gurminder Singh.

"The respondents shall take an appropriate decision on the petitioner's request/representation by tomorrow," the Bench said.The Bench was told that the issue was related to the filling of MBBS seats by the university in its affiliated constituent colleges on its own; however , well within the norms of the ACT, which created the university.

The university authorities in its petition claimed that it was entitled to make the admissions as per the act and statute, reserving 50 per cent seats for the general management quota and 50 per cent for the minority quota.

Further justifying its stand the university counsel argued that the state could only make admissions to private institutes affiliated to BFUHS.

An earlier report, the Medical Dialogues team had reported the management of SGRDUHS had announced the ending of government quota seats and an increase in fee from Rs 13.43 lakh to Rs 40.29 lakh , along with a 15 per cent registration fee, taking the total to Rs 46.33 lakh.

Read more at Medical Dialogues: Punjab: Medical College scraps govt quota, hikes tuition fee 4 fold

The BFUHS and the Department of Medical Education and Research (DMER) came down heavily in opposition of the decision, saying as SGRDUHS was a newly formed medical university ,it had no approval for its statues.

According to a recent Tribune report, a government notification to BFUHS, stated that the allocation of seats in the college would be as per Section 5 of the Punjab Private Health Sciences Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission, Fixation of Fee and Making of Reservation), Act 2006.

Section 5 of the Act states that an unaided private health sciences educational institution has the right to reserve up to 50 per cent seats of the total sanctioned intake in the management category.

The institute has a seat strength of a 150, while the college has 75 seats as minority/management quota (including 11 NRI quota seats), it took a decision to convert 75 government quota seats into the management category two weeks ago, and also made an announcement to this effect.

Read also: Punjab: Govt quota in SGPC medical college to be retained

The Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) run college has 150 seats with both the quotas sharing an equal half of seats. The minority/management quota seat costs Rs. 40 lakhs, while the government quota seats at the institute cost Rs. 10 lakh.