CHENNAI:A writ plea has been filed in the Madras High Court for a direction to the Director General of Health Services (DGHS) to comply with the PG Medical Education Regulations with reference to awarding of weightage of marks for service rendered in remote/difficult areas and for reserving 50 per cent of seats in PG diploma courses for eligible medical officers in government service, in respect of the all-India quota seats, based on NEET PG 2018.
When the writ petitions from Dr C Sudhan and six others came up for hearing on Monday, senior advocate V P Raman took notice for the Medical Council of India (MCI) and Justice R Mahadevan posted the matter for hearing on March 22.
According to advocate G Sankaran, some of the petitioners are in-service candidates, working as assistant surgeons in the TN Medical Services. They appeared for NEET PG 2018 held on January 7.
The National Board of Examination published the results on January 31, as per which the petitioners have secured more than 50th percentile and thereby they were declared as eligible for admission to the PG medical courses.
Some other petitioners, serving in remote/difficult areas, are entitled to weightage of marks as notified by the State government as per Regulation 9 (IV) of PG Regulations 2000 for admission in all-India quota seats.
But the DGHS was proceeding to conduct counselling for admission to PG courses without awarding weightage of marks for them, in violation of the MCI regulations. When Regulation 9 (VII) of PG Regulations provided for reservation of 50 per cent seats in PG diploma course for medical officers in government service, who have served at least three years in remote/difficult areas, the same has not been complied with by the DGHS for admission under the all-India quota, Sankaran contended.
The admission made by the DGHS during the last academic year has proved that it has not allotted 50 per cent of seats in PG diploma courses for service candidates.Having come to know that the DGHS was not complying with the legal requirements, representations were made to it. But there was no progress. Hence the present petition, Sankaran added.