A vacation bench of the Hyderabad High Court on Saturday made it clear that Article 371-D of the Constitution of India is not applicable to the Post Graduate medical and dental management quota seats in private non-minority medical and dental colleges in both AP and Telangana States.
The bench of Justice A Rajasheker Reddy and Justice T Rajani was dismissing petitions filed separately by Priyanka and 18 others of AP State and M Arun Kumar and six others of Telangana State seeking directions not to fill up the management quota (sub-category-1) seats from the candidates who are not belonging to the erstwhile state of Andhra Pradesh and erstwhile state of Telangana, respectively, for the academic year 2017-18.
The petitioners sought the court to declare that the management quota (sub-category - 1) seats are available only to the candidates belonging to the erstwhile state of AP and erstwhile state of Telangana. They further sought directions that the admissions to the PG medical degree/diploma courses to be made only from among the candidates who are eligible under NEET from among the candidates belonging to both the states. As per the Presidential Order, these seats have to be filled up with the candidates of the respective two states and not from the candidates from all over India, they contended. After hearing the case and perusing the material on record and court judgments, the bench took into consideration of the earlier judgment of this High Court which said that "the issue of management quota seats do not come under the purview of Article 371-D and that the eligible candidates from all over India are eligible for these seats", and dismissed the above petitions.
