NEET-PG 2018: Supreme Court Reserves Order on Plea Challenging MCI Rules

On April 18, 2018, the Supreme Court of India reserved its order on petitions challenging the MCI’s regulations that deal with reservation to in-service candidates in admission to PG medical courses in respect of 50% seats allocated to states.

The Medical Officers Association of Tamil Nadu have strongly lashed two amended provisions of the PG Medical Education Regulations. The regulations provide the criteria for granting incentive marks or quota to government doctors serving in remote or rural areas, in admission to Post Graduate (PG) medical courses.

As per the Regulation 9 (IV) of PG Medical Education Regulations, the reservation of PG seats in medical colleges for respective categories shall be as per the applicable laws of UTs and states and a state-wise & an all-India merit list of the eligible candidates shall be prepared on the basis of marks scored by them in NEET-PG.

The Regulation 9 further states that doctors engaged in government service may be given weightage as an incentive of up to 10% of the marks obtained by the candidates for each year of service in rural, remote or under-developed areas up to maximum 30% marks scored in NEET-PG. However, the Regulation VIII provides for 50% reservation of seats in PG diploma courses for government doctors.

Also Read: Karnataka: NEET-PG Admission Eligibility Norms Relaxed

The Doctors Association of Tamil Nadu alleged that even though 50% of seats are reserved for government doctors in PG diploma courses, the system of granting incentive marks is adopted to grant admission in PG medical courses.

The association further alleged that the determination and coordination of standards in higher education institutes come under the purview of ‘Union List’. However, ‘medical education’ comes under ‘Concurrent List’, and states have complete authority to frame its own method of the admission process for PG medical courses.

The arguments in the Supreme Court were heard by a five-judge constitution bench comprising of Chief Justice Dipak Mishra, and Justices Ashok Bhushan, DY Chandrachud, AM Khanwilkar and AK Sikri. The arguments were heard on behalf of Tamil Nadu Doctors Association, MCI, centre, Haryana and Kerala in favour and against the regulations.

An advocate representing Tamil Nadu Doctors Association referred to constitutional schemes and various judgements and pointed that the state governments are empowered to frame mechanism to allocate 50% of its PG medical seats to candidates.

Also Read: Telangana: 27 Additional PG Medical Seats Approved

An advocate appearing for MCI pointed that the states are not empowered to ‘lower/ degrade’ the standards of selection of candidates by violating the MCI regulations. He also sought to distinguish between PG medical courses and PG diploma courses and submitted that there is no necessity to pass any interim order.

The Additional Solicitor General, who was representing the Centre, stated that the issue is under the exclusive domain of the Union Government and the state governments can’t legislate on it.

After hearing all the arguments, the apex court reserved its interim order.