Tamil Nadu: No additional medical seats, high court told

CHENNAI: The National Medical Commission (NMC) on Thursday informed the Madras high court that additional seats cannot be created in 24 medical colleges in Tamil Nadu to accommodate candidates under the 7.5% reservation provided for students from government schools, as it requires prior sanction of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the high courts cannot order creation of such additional medical seats, V P Raman, counsel for NMC,said.
The issue pertains to a batch of pleas moved by candidates who got allotted to self-finance medical colleges through reservation but opted to waitlist as they could not afford the fee.
A day later, the state government announced that it would sponsor all such students who are allotted seats in self-financing colleges.
Claiming that they would not have opted to waitlist if the announcement was made a day before during their counselling a batch of such students have moved the present petitions.
During the course of hearing, Justice N Anand Venkatesh suggested creating additional seats as a onetime measure to accommodate the students totalling 60.
However, in view of the submissions made by the NMC, the judge refrained from passing any such order. If such order is challenged and eventually reversed by the Apex Court it would be more cruel for the students, the judge said.
Earlier, advocate-general Vijay Narayan informed the court that so far 11 MBBS seats have been reverted to the state quota from the all-India quota and in addition to 15 BDS seats.
Therefore, as per the present status we have 26 seats which can be allotted to the students, he said.
Representing a petitioner, senior advocate P Wilson submitted that priority must be given to students who are in the waitlist.
As the AG also concurred with the submission, Justice Anand Venkatesh directed the authorities to conduct a separate counselling for such students after the conclusion of the second of regular counselling.