BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Thursday reserved a judgment on a petition filed by Kanachur Islamic Education Trust pleading for direction to the state government to allot seats to students belonging to Sunni Muslims for the first-year MBBS course in its medical college in Mangaluru. A division bench comprising of Justice AS Bopanna and Justice Mohammad Nawaz reserved the judgment. The petition was filed against the order passed by Medical Education Department on July 4, which rejected the request of the trust to allot seats to students belonging to the Sunni Muslim community.
In its letter written to the department last May, the trust had requested to allot 82 seats for students of Sunni Muslim community of 150 seats under the institutional quota seats for first-year MBBS course.
The trust requested the government to impose a condition that the students should obtain certificate by Sunni Jam Iyyathul Ulama in Mangaluru and religious certificate from the revenue authorities for seats under management quota.It was claimed that 38 seats — which is 25% of the total seats — were left open for students of any religion or caste under government quota.
The trust claimed their institute was declared as religious minority institution. Therefore, it said it had the right to express its choice of giving preference to the students to be allotted through common counselling conducted by the Karnataka government.The government opposed the petition on the ground that the trust cannot insist on allotment of seats to a particular community as it had obtained religious minority institution and had not claimed it was a Sunni Muslim religious trust before National Commission for Minority Educational Institution.