NEW DELHI: In an important ruling for thousands of medical students across India, the Supreme Court has said that super-specialities in medical education should be unreserved, open and free to usher in the best of talents and national interest should be kept in mind.
A bench of justices Dipak Misra and P C Pant on Tuesday asked Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to drop their policies of reserving seats for super-speciality medical courses to only students domiciled there.
“The fond hope has remained... The said privilege remains unchanged, as if to compete with eternity,” the court said in its 58-page judgment. “We hope and trust that the government of India and the State governments shall seriously consider this aspect of the matter without delay and appropriate guidelines shall be evolved,” the judgment stated.
However, the ruling only deals with the two states of Andhra and Telangana and the court will consider Tamil Nadu’s case separately on November 4. The judgment came on a batch of petitions by students challenging the domicile policy followed by both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on the strength of a Presidential order, namely, Andhra Pradesh Educational Institutions (Regulations and Admissions) order of 1974 promulgated under Article 371(D) of the Constitution, which gave special privileges of education and employment to the local people of Andhra Pradesh.
The court asked Andhra and Telangana to objectively assess the policy to see whether it does justice to the aspirations of students and approach the issue keeping national interest as paramount.
The bench also referred to the apex court’s earlier rulings and said, “In Dr Pradeep Jain case, this court has observed that in super- specialities, there should really be no reservation. This is so in the general interest of the country and for improving the standard of higher education and thereby improving the quality of available medical services to the people of India.”
The judgment came after the court allowed petitions filed by some MBBS doctors. The doctors had complained that while in most of India they are allowed to appear in entrance exams of different states for courses like DM (Doctor of Medicine) and MCh (Master of Chirurgiae), Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu permitted only those domiciled in these states.