The Madras High Court on Friday directed the State government not to issue allotment orders to candidates during the ongoing counselling for the MBBS course till Monday, as several petitions over the matter were pending before court.
When a plea seeking to restrict the ongoing admission only to students who passed the Plus Two exams in May 2015 came up for hearing, a Division Bench comprising Justices Satish K. Agnihotri and M. Venugopal directed the government not to issue allotment orders, but allowed it hold counselling.
“Keeping in mind the urgency and that so many students are involved, we will certainly not permit you to go ahead with the process. Counselling can be done, but do not take any decision. We are not stopping the process. You can go ahead with counselling, but no admission can be made till Monday,” the bench said.
Since the Advocate General agreed not to issue allotment orders and admission letters to students, no written orders were necessary, the Bench said.
During the hearing of the case, Advocate General A.L. Somayaji sought permission for counselling to continue, observing that many students from far off places have to come and counselling for differently-abled students had commenced on Friday.
2,200 seats availableFor over 2,200 MBBS seats available, a total of 31,525 students, including 4,679 from previous years, had applied, he said, adding 46 students who did not get MBBS admission last year since they were under-aged have also applied.
As per the State legislation and the prospectus, the minimum age for participating in the MBBS counselling was 17 years, Mr. Somayaji said.
As for the contention that about 50 per cent of all available seats would go to previous years’ candidates if they were allowed in the counselling, the Advocate-General said 548 students from previous years were likely to get admission into MBBS.
‘Baseless argument’He rejected the students’ argument that the evaluation of answer sheets during earlier years was liberal as baseless.
