Source –\u00a0hindustantimes.com<\/p>\n
The Gujarat high court on Monday struck down a state government rule debarring students of deemed universities from applying for admission to medical post graduation courses under the provision of 50% state quota.<\/p>\n
The court verdict allows deemed university students to apply for admission in medical courses under the seats reserved for pupils from Gujarat.<\/p>\n
A division bench of Chief Justice R Subhash Reddy and Justice VM Pancholi quashed rule 4(2) of the Gujarat Professional Post Graduate Medical Educational Courses (Regulation of Admission) Rules, 2018, terming it \u201cillegal and arbitrary\u201d.<\/p>\n
The regulation 4(2) states candidates shall be eligible for applying for admission to professional medical colleges only when they have completed the recognised MBBS or BDS course from a university established under any law of the government of Gujarat.<\/p>\n
The HC order came after some students, who were denied permission to apply for admission in state medical colleges under the 50% quota provided to students from Gujarat as per the law, moved a set of petitions before the court, challenging the constitutional validity of the regulation.<\/p>\n
The petitioners last year appeared for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) and said they had applied for admission to PG medical course in Gujarat universities under the 50% state quota.<\/p>\n
NEET is the national-level entrance exam for admission to medical and dental colleges across the country.<\/p>\n
In their petitions, they said despite fulfilling other criteria for 50% state quota, they were denied admission on ground they had studied in a Gujarat-based deemed university, established under the UGC Act, which was not covered under the state quota rules.<\/p>\n
They said a deemed university, established under the UGC Act, is \u201carbitrarily and unreasonably excluded from the purview of the state quota\u201d.<\/p>\n
Such an exclusion suffers from \u201cvice of arbitrariness as envisaged under Article 14 of the Constitution (which deals with equality before law)\u201d, the petitioners argued.<\/p>\n
The petitioners said last year, students from both the state and deemed universities were allowed to apply for admission under the state quota.<\/p>\n
The students maintained they were under the impression that they will be qualified to apply under the state quota this year as well.<\/p>\n