Legal Correspondent
The Supreme Court, in an interim order on Monday, clarified that 70% of the postgraduate admissions for 2021-22 at the Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, should be made from the list of Christian minority students prepared by the State of Tamil Nadu on the basis of marks obtained in the NEET-PG examination.
A Bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao and B.R. Gavai directed that the remaining 30% of the seats be filled by the college management in compliance with the procedure followed in the previous academic year of 2020-21.
The students belonging to States other than Tamil Nadu, who have completed their MBBS at the college, should be treated as residents on the basis of the prevalent procedure, the court ordered. It underscored that its order was restricted for the purpose of admissions for 2021-22 and should not be treated as a precedent. "Do not discriminate. If students who have completed five years are treated as residents, you have to treat these students also the same. Do not make them come here again. All these years, admissions have been done smoothly, let them be done smoothly this year," Justice Rao addressed Additional Advocate-General of Tamil Nadu Amit Anand Tiwari.
The court also told the CMC, represented by senior advocate Shyam Diwan and advocate Krishna Srinivasan, that it should not raise any new condition for admissions now. The oral remark was made after Mr. Tiwari complained that the CMC had raised "unnecessary conditions like a bond for ₹1.25 crore to dissuade students from taking admissions". "That should go," he submitted.
"Mr. Diwan, don't raise any new conditions," Justice Rao said.
The allotment of seats in the undergraduate courses, the court said, would mirror that in the postgraduate courses.
The court further ordered that the annual allotment of 10% seats to dependents of the college staff members would be within the 30% seats.
Mr. Diwan said the practice of allotting 10% seats for the children of the staff members, regardless of whether they are Christian or not, had been followed for years. The practice was affirmed in the past by the Supreme Court as non-discriminatory.
The court was hearing an interim application filed by the college on a January 19, 2022 order of the court. In January, the court directed Tamil Nadu to conduct postgraduate admissions to the prestigious college from the NEET merit list of students belonging to the Christian minority after counselling by the State Selection Committee. The college pleaded that pursuant to the January 19 order, the allotment of students for PG courses ought to be made from the all-India merit list and not the list prepared by the State.
The court is seized with a writ petition filed by the CMC to quash the Selection Committee's communication that the 2021-22 admissions for undergraduate and postgraduate courses would be conducted on the basis of religious minority (Christian minority) as per the NEET scores following the 50-50 seat-sharing policy. The court said it would have the final hearing of the writ petition on March 7.
