The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the writ petitions submitted by two MBBS aspirants against the conversion of NRI quota seats to general category seats during the spot allotment for MBBS courses held here the other day.
The plea was heard by a Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India Deepak Mishra. Even though counsel for the students argued that the NRI quota seats could not be converted into merit seats, the Bench was not inclined to listen. Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the State government, argued that it was because the candidates did not have sufficient documents with them to prove that they were legitimate claimants to the NRI quota that the seats were later converted to general category seats.
Hearing postponed
In the meantime, the Supreme Court postponed to Monday the hearing on writ petitions filed by the managements of three self-financing colleges against the cancellation of admission to the MBBS seats in their institutions. Notices would be sent to the Medical Council of India and the Central government.
On the basis of an interim ruling of the Kerala High Court, 400 students were admitted to Al Azhar College, Thodupuzha, Mount Zion Medical College, Adoor, and DM Institute of Medical Sciences, Wayanad. The apex court had the other day set aside these admissions.
The MCI’s case is that permission to admit students should not be given to colleges that do not have the necessary infrastructure. The State government’s stand is that these 400 students were taken from the NEET list and so the admissions should be okayed.
Counsel for the managements led Kapil Sibal argued that there were parallels in this case with that of the Appollo Institute of Medical Science, Hyderabad, and the medical college run by the Saraswathi Charitable Trust, Karnataka. These colleges were allowed admissions by the apex court. A similar approach may be adopted in this case too, they argued.
