HC Stays Direction to 17 Medical Colleges to Surrender NRI MBBS Seats, Conditions Imposed
Karnataka High Court
Bengaluru: Granting relief to altogether 17 private medical colleges, which were earlier directed to surrender a certain number of management/NRI quota MBBS seats to the government quota seats, a Division Bench of the High Court recently stayed the Single Judge bench order in this regard.
These colleges were earlier penalised for violating the norms and admitting students securing lower ranks to MBBS courses in 2018. While granting the stay, the HC Division bench has imposed a condition on the colleges, asking them to deposit the Court the differential amount of fees, charged for the government quota seats in private colleges and the management/NRI quota seats.
As per the court order, the colleges will have to deposit this amount with respect to the number of seats that they were required to surrender to the government quota seats within four weeks.
The colleges have to pay the differential amount of fees- fees fixed by the government and the amount collected by them under the NRI/management quota from the 2018 batch students.
However, the interim order passed by the Division Bench of Chief Justice N.V.Anjaria and Justice K.V. Aravind is subject to the final order as the colleges contended that if the Bench dismissed their appeals, they would be bound to surrender the seats for the next academic year.
As per the latest media report by The Hindu, the single judge passed an order on April 25 and directed 17 medical colleges to surrender altogether 212 seats for this academic year. Further, the Single Judge bench had also imposed exemplary fines for making admissions contrary to the law as alleged by NMC and RGUHS.
Challenging the single-judge bench, Vydehi Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Bengaluru, and several other medical colleges approached the Division Bench of the High Court.
The colleges argued that the single-judge bench passed the order based on the submissions made by the National Medical Commission (NMC) and the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) without any objections filed by the State on the plea filed by the colleges and students questioning the RGUHS's decision to not allow the students to appear for the exam.
Previously, the counsel for the government had submitted before the Court that the Department of Medical Education was awaiting an order on these appeals by withholding the seat matrix for the MBBS course for the admission to 2024-2025 as these seats will have to be added to the government quota seat matrix as per the order passed by the Single Judge bench. However, following the interim order passed by the HC Division bench, the government cannot add these seats to the seat matrix for this academic year.
Also Read: Karnataka HC grants relief to 447 MBBS medicos, waives their compulsory rural service
