CHENNAI: A PIL has been filed in the Madras High Court to quash a clause in the prospectus for admission to PG degree/diploma courses for 2019-20, requiring the candidates to furnish “two sureties from a permanent government employee in the same or higher rank than the candidates” as arbitrary, unreasonable and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.
A vacation bench of Justices S Vaidyanathan and Subramonium Prasad, before which the PIL from advocate T K Saravanan of Thambu Chetty Street, came up for hearing on Wednesday, ordered notice to the Health secretary and the Medical Education director, returnable on May 15. This requirement is made mandatory while executing a bond for Rs 20 lakh for PG diploma and Rs 40 lakh for PG degree courses for 2019-20, for admission in government medical colleges and against government seats in self-financing medical colleges.
According to the petitioner, most of the students who are economically disadvantaged and do not have easy access to government officials, cannot dream of getting sureties. It casts an unnecessary burden, more particularly on their parents.
Some government officials, taking advantage of the arbitrary condition, demand hefty amount for signing as surety. In this connection, the petitioner cited a newspaper report which supported his case.