There is no obligation on private medical colleges to provide reservation for Non-Resident Indians (NRI) & it is the discretion of management of such colleges to provide such quota, the Apex Court ruled on Friday.
However, if a medical college or institution decides to do away with such quota, reasonable notice of such a decision should be given to enable those aspiring to such seats to choose elsewhere, the bench headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao said.
The bench which also comprised justice S Ravindra Bhat held that “Private colleges & institutions can decide whether, & to what extent, they wish to offer NRI quota. Yet that discretion should be tempered; if the discretion to have such a quota is (initially) exercised, it should (if) revised or modified (be done) reasonably, & within reasonable time".
The SC was hearing a petition filed by certain medical candidates challenging a judgment of the High Court of Rajasthan which had upheld the change of seat matrix for admission to postgraduate (PG) medical & dental seats in colleges in the State of Rajasthan, for the academic year 2020-21, by eliminating the NRI quota.
The admission to PG medical & dental courses for the academic year 2020-21 began sometime in early 2020. The procedure for selection for admissions began with the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), which was held in Jan 2020.
The breakup of seats published on March 17, 2020, said that 15% of the total intake in PG medical courses would be filled by NRI quota aspirants.
Subsequently, due to the spread of Covid-19 pandemic, a broad consensus emerged among private colleges that going ahead with the NRI quota would be inadvisable.
Therefore, on April 11, 2020 private colleges en masse decided not to proceed with the NRI quota & instead merge it with the 35 percent management quota seats, & proceeded to fill them entirely based upon rank based merit of the management quota candidates arranged in terms of their ranking & performance in the NEET.
NRI candidates were to be treated as management quota candidates & their applications too were considered on the basis of their overall merit in that category.
This was challenged before the Rajasthan high court & the challenge was upheld by the single judge who on July 10 ruled that only after exhausting the option of filling eligible NRI candidates in that quota that the remaining seats in the 15% could be treated as management quota seats.
However, a division bench of the HC overturned this decision of the single judge on Aug 25 & approved the decision of the private collages to scrap NRI quota. By then, admissions were made by colleges based on single Judge’s order & the division bench’s order meant that another round of admission to those seats had to be conducted.
The Supreme Court noted that NRI quota is at the discretion of the private medical colleges & the same has been settled through previous judgments of the Apex Court in TMA Pai Foundation v. State of Karnataka & PA Inamdar v. State of Maharashtra.
However, it observed that the prevailing pandemic, the various steps which impelled the NRI quota candidates to commit themselves, & the eleventh hour policy change brought about by the colleges acted to the distinct disadvantage of these NRI candidates.
In the circumstances of the case & to do justice to all the parties, the court ordered that a special counselling session should be carried out, confined or restricted to the seats in respect of which admissions were made pursuant to the single judge’s directions.
The Court said that “The counselling shall be a limited one, confined only to the number of seats offered & filled as a result of the single judge’s judgment. Such seats shall be offered to the NRI applicants solely on the basis of merit; the seats vacated by such merited students (in the other disciplines) shall then be offered to the beneficiaries of the single judge’s orders".
Read Judgement
Source Link
Share this Document :Picture Source :
