Supreme Court firm on no 10% quota in post graduate medical courses for Maharashtra

About 25 post graduate medical and dental seats in Maharashtra are up for grabs in the open merit category after the Supreme Court on Thursday clamped down the state government's decision to allot 10 per cent seats for the economically weaker sections among the unreserved category in the current academic year.

The decision of the Court has come a day before admissions close for the 185 post-graduate (PG) medical and dental courses in the state. Seeing the order as a setback, the state government requested the apex court to grant an extension of time for filling up the seats. The Vacation Bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Aniruddha Bose said, "We think we have given enough indulgence to Maharashtra. We are not going to extend the time."

As per the schedule for admissions fixed by the Medical Council of India (MCI), the PG admission process began in November 2018 and is expected to close by May 31. The 10 per cent quota for the economically weaker sections introduced by way of the 103rd Constitutional Amendment came into force on January 14. By January 31, the results of the NEET PG medical and dental courses were out. Following this, the state issued two separate notifications on February 12 and March 7, applying the 10 per cent quota to PG medical and dental admissions.

Hearing a petition by Janhit Abhiyan and a set of individuals who challenged the 10 per cent quota rollout in the state this year, the Vacation Bench noted that the decision to introduce the quota was taken after the PG admission process started. The bench said, "You cannot change the rules of the game when the game is already on. It is a time-tested principle of law that the modalities of selection cannot be changed after initiation of the process."

The state government, represented by advocate Nishant Katneshwarkar, informed the bench that any interference by the Court would deprive the poor students of admission. The Court said unless the MCI allows the state to increase seats by 10 per cent, the law passed by the state can't be sustained for this academic year. "Any reservation now will be at the cost of the general category students," added the bench. Moreover, since the validity of the 10 per cent quota is under challenge before the SC, any adverse order will render admissions given under Maharashtra's law to be "untenable".

Under the 10 per cent quota, the state has filled up 23 out of the 159 PG medical seats and two out of the 26 PG dental seats. The state informed the Court that a similar situation had arisen with regards to the implementation of the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) Act giving 16 per cent reservation in jobs and admissions to SEBCs, including the Maratha community. After the Bombay HC refused permission for the roll-out of Maratha quota, the state issued an Ordinance to validate the same. The judges replied, "It's up to you to issue any number of Ordinances. We pass orders we deem proper."