Punjab MBBS NRI quota seats under fresh scrutiny

The admissions to Punjab’s MBBS courses under the NRI quota in private colleges have come under fresh scrutiny, and the Punjab and Haryana high court on Wednesday made it clear that at least 10 of these would be subject to final verdict.

The high court order came on an appeal by some students from this category against the single-judge order of directing the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS), Faridkot, to fill vacant NRI seats in the MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery) and BDS (Bachelor of Dental Science) courses by giving these away to general-category candidates who had at least 50% marks in the Punjab Pre-Medical Entrance Test (PMET), 2015. The court had made it clear that only the PMET candidates were to be admitted.

The appellants had submitted that under Section 4 (3) of the Punjab Private Health Sciences Educational Institutes (Regulations of Admission, Fixation of Fees and Making of Reservation) Act, 2006, the admission to all categories of seats in private health sciences institutes, except in the case of NRIs, were to be made on the basis of inter-se merit of the PMET candidates. Therefore, candidates seeking MBBS seats for the session 2015-16 against the NRI quota were not required statutorily to appear in the test, it was argued. The argument stated that in exceptional circumstances, admissions could be done even after September 30, the deadline set by the Supreme Court.

Following this, the high court sought lists of students admitted, and after scrutiny, picked 10 students whose admissions would be subject to final verdict on this appeal. After the single judge order, the BFUHS had filled 85 NRI seats from the general category on the basis of the PMET. It was done on September 30, the final date of medical college admissions that the apex court had set.

For nearly 100 MBBS seats in the NRI quota in private and government medical colleges of Punjab, only 64 eligible NRIs had applied, of which only 17 had qualified. The high court has also asked the Medical Council of India (MCI) to submit a reply by the next hearing on October 19.