New Delhi: Taking note of the fact that the petitioners had not challenged the provisions of the Information Bulletin mentioning that the vacant NRI seats would be converted to unreserved seats, the Supreme Court has dismissed the plea seeking time for fresh registration of NRI candidates before the mop-up round of NEET counselling.
While dismissing the plea, the top court bench comprising of Justices D Y Chandrachud and Bela M Trivedi noted, "Since the appellants have not challenged the provisions of the Information Bulletin which stipulate that the vacant NRI seats shall be converted to unreserved seats during the mop-up round, we cannot decide on the legality of such a conversion of seats. The 4 appellants who had registered their options for NRI seats had not exercised their options with respect to any of the vacant 45 NRI seats."
"The respondents merely complied with the provisions of the Information Bulletin which is not in challenge before us in the present proceedings. The respondent association had only sought an extension of time for submission of documents by candidates seeking to apply for the NRI quota seats. The representation was rejected by CEE since sufficient time and extension had been given for the submission of the documents. The appellants have not contended that the rejection of the representation was malafide or arbitrary," it further added.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that some NRI students had recently approached the Supreme Court seeking time for fresh registration before the mop-up round of NEET counselling. Apart from issuing notice in the matter, the top court had also directed the State of Kerala to inform the court about the unfilled vacant seats after the mop-up round.
The petitioner doctors approached the top court after the Kerala High Court dismissed a similar plea by the Kerala Private Medical College Management Association. It was submitted by the petitioner association that the rank list for eligible candidates in the NRI quota consisting of 618 rank holders got exhausted after two rounds of counselling. However, despite the exhaustion of the rank list, 57 seats in the NRI quota were lying vacant in the colleges under the association as on the date of filing the writ petition. It was contended that, since the money collected from the NRI students are utilized for benefiting students from economically weaker sections of the society, the respondents ought to have extended the period to fill up the vacant NRI quota seats.
When the matter reached the Supreme Court, the counsel for the petitioner students pointed out that 46 seats belonging to NRI quota were lying vacant and as per the rules those seats cannot be converted to any other category.
The top court had issued notice in the matter and directed the State of Kerala to inform the court about the unfilled vacant seats after the mop up round and carry out a fresh verification regarding the status of the NRI MBBS candidates and submit the report before the court.
Following this, the counsel for the State of Kerala, Senior Advocate Jaideep Gupta informed the bench about three categories in which the students were divided. He submitted that at the Mop Up round, 4 candidates who had applied for the Mop Up Round of counselling were required to indicate the category for which they were applying.
Referring to the fact that NRI students were ready to pay NRI fees for good standard colleges, he also submitted, "This is a computerized process & if you fill up your option it'll automatically show up. If there were 4 persons who had opted NRI in colleges where three are NRI vacancies, the computer would have automaticity shown up and then the seats would have gone from 48 to 44. Persons who are getting it are in the merit much more. There are many more students in higher merit in the general category."
On the other hand, the counsel for the students, Senior Advocate Huzefa Ahmadi submitted before the court that the exercise, which the state had carried out was like creating a category within a category. He further stressed on the fact that the State had flipped seats belonging to NRI category to General category at the time of Mop-Up round and pointed out that State could not flip seats as they had to conduct the stray counselling round.
After taking note of the submissions, the top court bench had reserved its order on May 5, 2022. The main dispute of the case was regarding the question whether the seats reserved for the NRI quota in private medical colleges in the State of Kerala can be transferred to the unreserved category.
The top court bench took note of the Status Report filed by the State of Kerala last year, and Clause2 of the prospectus. As per Clause 2.2 , the categorization of seats in self-financing colleges run by institutions under Government control and other private self-financing colleges was to be notified separately. Further the bench also referred to Clause 4.1.4 of the Prospectus defining Special Reservation, Clause 5.2 providing a list of special category reservations , Clause 4.1.5 which stipulates the breakup of reservation and other relevant clauses.
Reference was also made to the Information Bulletin issued by the Medical Counselling Committee and the previous judgments of the Supreme Court including Modern Dental College and Research Centre (supra), PA Inamdar (supra) and the Constitution Bench in TMA Pai (supra).
At this outset the bench noted, "The names of only 7 of the 37 appellants find place in the NRI category list which was published by CEE on 31 January 2022. The respondent has submitted that of the 7 appellants whose names find place in the NRI category list, only 4 of them had registered options for NRI seats. However, candidates who had received a higher rank than them were allotted those seats. Further, it was also submitted by the respondent that none of the 7 candidates registered their options for the 45 NRI seats that were later converted to unreserved seats. The respondent submits that only because none of the 7 candidates registered their options concerning NRI seats, were the seats converted to unreserved seats to prevent the seats from lying vacant."
Taking note of the fact that the petitioners had not challenged the provisions of the Information Bulletin mentioning that the vacant NRI seats would be converted to unreserved seats, the bench noted, "Since the appellants have not challenged the provisions of the Information Bulletin which stipulate that the vacant NRI seats shall be converted to unreserved seats during the mop-up round, we cannot decide on the legality of such a conversion of seats. The 4 appellants who had registered their options for NRI seats had not exercised their options with respect to any of the vacant 45 NRI seats. The respondents merely complied with the provisions of the Information Bulletin which is not in challenge before us in the present proceedings. The respondent association had only sought an extension of time for submission of documents by candidates seeking to apply for the NRI quota seats. The representation was rejected by CEE since sufficient time and extension had been given for the submission of the documents. The appellants have not contended that the rejection of the representation was malafide or arbitrary."
Therefore the plea seeking time for fresh registration for NRI quota candidates was dismissed by the Supreme Court.
To read the court order, click on the link below.
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