Supreme Court stays Gujarat HC order cancelling admission of MBBS student
New Delhi: Providing interim relief to an MBBS student whose admission to a government medical college in Vadodara was cancelled due to inconsistencies in caste certificate, the Supreme Court has stayed the Gujarat High Court order which denied the conversion of his seat from reserved category to general and upheld the cancellation of his admission.
While staying the order of cancelling the student's admission, the apex court has also issued notices to the government medical college where the petitioner applied for admission, the State of Gujarat, the National Medical Commission (NMC) erstwhile Medical Council of India (MCI), and Maharaja Sayaji Rao University in connection.
Considering the Gujarat HC's order, the apex court bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and Prashant Kumar Mishra observed that the petitioner had the opportunity to secure admission to any government medical college as a general category candidate. However, due to his previous application under the Socially and Economically Backward Class (SEBC), he would not be eligible for admission to the medical college in Vadodara.
"As can be seen, the petitioner's merit as general category candidate was taken into account in several government medical colleges in the State of Gujarat. However the division bench has held that as the petitioner is disentitled to be considered in SEBC category, he is disentitled for the seat in medical College," the Court observed as reported by Bar and Bench.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that the Gujarat High Court on March 26 upheld the petitioner's cancellation of mbbs admission due to inconsistencies in his caste certificate and denied conversion of his seat from the reserved category to the general category. The division bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Aniruddha P. Mayee said that he did not belong to the Socially and Economically Backward Class (SEBC) in the State of Gujarat and the conversion of his to general category could not take place as he had applied admission based on the reserved category.
It passed the order even though the petitioner would have been eligible for admission even in the general category list and would not have required caste-based reservation.
“Once this certificate is cancelled, your admission goes automatically. No one can save your admission. Sympathy is not a ground to save admission in this kind of case. There is no question of considering you in the open category. Once someone has claimed the benefit of reservation, he has to stand by that.” observed the Gujarat HC bench.
The order was issued two months after a single judge decided to reinstate the student's admission, considering his family background and commending his accomplishments.
Unsatisfied with the division bench's decision, the petitioner moved to the Supreme Court through advocate Purvish Malkan in the hope of finding an alternative solution to the problem.
The student scored 613 marks out of 720 with a merit rank of 600 in the NEET UG-examination 2022 in the General category and a merit rank of 154 in the SEBC category. He was eligible for admission to all 39 medical and 12 dental colleges, except three colleges, including the one where he was studying.
The student is the son of a pani puri vendor from Meghraj in the Aravalli district, who got admission to the Vadodara government medical college under the Socially and Economically Backward Classes (SEBC) category based on the caste certificate issued in 2018. He was born in Uttar Pradesh but did his schooling in Gujarat.
After his admission, when the state admission committee sent his caste documents for verification, the developing caste welfare department found his caste, mentioned as Teli, does not fall under the SEBC category in Gujarat. Following this, the Admission Committee for Professional Undergraduate and Postgraduate Medical Educational Courses (ACPUGMEC, ACPPGMEC) cancelled Rathod’s admission.
On September 1, 2023, his admission was cancelled due to the rejection of the caste certificate he had submitted to the college by both the state government and the state admission committee.
