Two medical aspirants allotted seats at their native places

HC enables them to secure MBBS seats in Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi colleges

MADURAI, TAMIL NADU 08/07/2017: A view of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court in Tamil Nadu. Photo: G. Moorthy

MADURAI

Visually impaired medical aspirant J. Vibin of Tirunelveli, who undertook a series of litigations to join the course of his choice, has been allotted a seat at Tirunelveli Medical College. The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court was informed of this by the State on Wednesday.

Taking note of the submission, a Division Bench of Justices K. Ravichandrabaabu and Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy closed the contempt petition. The State had earlier informed the court that Vibin would be allotted a medical seat this academic year.

The contempt petition was filed by Vibin’s father M. Jabakar, who sought a direction to the Selection Committee to allot a seat to his son. Though Vibin was allotted a seat at Pudukkottai Medical College after online counselling last year, he was denied admission following a variation in the visual impairment assessment. His disability was assessed at 90% by Madras Medical College, contrary to the 75% disability mentioned in the certificate issued by the State government.

A single judge bench had allowed the petition filed by Mr. Jabakar, and the subsequent appeal preferred by the State was dismissed by a Division Bench. The supreme Court also dismissed the Special Leave Petition preferred by the State, following which it agreed to allot a medical seat to the candidate under special category.

Meanwhile, following the orders of Justice R. Suresh Kumar, another candidate, P. Karuppasamy from Thoothukudi, who was denied a seat on the basis of nativity, was allotted a medical seat at Government Thoothukudi Medical College. Though Karuppasamy had completed his school education in Thoothukudi, he was denied a seat since his parents were Tamils from Sri Lanka.

The court, taking into account that the candidate was born and brought up in Thoothukudi and had obtained a community certificate under Scheduled Caste category issued by a Tahsildar, observed, “Law is well settled that as far as communal status was concerned, if a certificate was issued by a competent authority, until and unless the certificate is withdrawn or cancelled in matter known to law, the law shall presume that the candidate belongs to that community”.

The court had directed the Selection Committee to consider the candidature of the writ petitioner for admission to MBBS as per his community ranking based on his NEET score.