SC stays HC order to give micro quota at private medical colleges in Punjab
The Supreme Court on Monday put a stay on the Punjab and Haryana High Court order to provide 1% micro-reservation in all the private medical and dental colleges in the state.
On July 26, the high court had held that mi¬cro-reser¬va¬tion of 1% in MBBS and BDS cour¬ses for chil-dren/grandchil¬dren of persons affected by ter¬ror and anti-Sikh ri¬ots will be appli¬ca¬ble to state quota as well as man¬age¬ment quota in all pri¬vate un¬aided non-mi¬nor¬ity medical/den¬tal in¬sti¬tu¬tions. The court also held that un¬der sports quota in govern¬ment col¬leges, the reser¬va¬tion would be 3% and not 1% as no¬ti¬fied by the govern¬ment.
With the SC’s latest ruling, confusion prevails among the aspirants over the counselling for MBBS and BDS admissions being conducted by the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) in Punjab.
As the hearing was adjourned to August 23, there will a delay in the admission process which has been on hold for more than a month due to petitions filed in court. As per the Medical Council of India (MCI) guidelines, the admission process is required to be completed by August 30.
The state is yet to conduct the first round of counselling to fill 2,373 MBBS and BDS seats in eight medical and 15 dental colleges. On August 9, a special leave petition (SPL) was filed by the state government in the Supreme Court challenging the high court’s July 26 judgment.
The state government counsel, Uttara Babbar said they challenged the HC order on several grounds. “After observing the facts and documents, the high court order on 1% micro-reservation in private medical colleges was put on stay by the court and matter has been listed for further hearing,” she added.
DK Tiwari, principal secretary (medical education and research) said the department is in constant touch with the apex court lawyers. “The high court ruling has been stayed by the court but we have not seen the order yet. We are also in touch with the BFUHS authorities and the admissions process will be completed before the MCI deadline,” he added.