MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court held that the results of the post graduate degree medical counselling in Tamil Nadu, which commenced on Thursday, would be subject to the outcome of a plea filed before the Supreme Court seeking 50 per cent reservation for in-service candidates in seats converted from diploma courses.
Justice CV Karthikeyan made the decision while hearing petitions filed by two persons -- K Sevanthu Preethiga and VN Sandhya Priyadarshini -- seeking grant of admission by providing the above relief.
According to the petitioners, as per MCI regulations, 50 per cent of the seats in Post Graduate Diploma Courses shall be reserved for medical officers in the government services, who have served for at least three years in remote and difficult areas.
Since the Board of Governors in supersession of Medical Council of India (MCI BoG) recently converted hundreds of PG diploma seats from medical colleges across the country to PG degree courses, only three diploma seats are available in Tamil Nadu and that too, only in the discipline of Diabetology, they pointed out.
They sought direction to provide 50 per cent reservation to in-service candidates in PG degree seats that were converted from diploma courses.
Since it was brought to his notice that a similar plea is pending before Supreme Court, Justice Karthikeyan gave the above direction. He further told the Central and State government to file a counter in the next hearing on June 2.