MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court recently directed the Ministry of Women and Child Development to recommend eligible candidates to get medical admission under the Central Pool from the next academic year onwards.
Justice GR Swaminathan gave the direction while disposing of a petition filed by a medical aspirant, Sa Sivasoorya, requesting the court to direct the Child Development Ministry to recommend his name for one of the two medical seats allotted by the Union Health Ministry under the Central Pool for the recipients of the National Child Award for Exceptional Achievement, which he won in 2016.
The judge noted that the petitioner, who hails from a rural background, had made significant academic and technical achievements and had also cleared NEET last year. Despite being eligible, he was not selected under the Central Pool, under which two medical seats had been allotted to the Ministries of Human Resource Development and Women and Child Development to nominate and recommend eligible candidates, including those who had received the aforesaid award, the judge added.
This was because the Ministry of Child Development had surrendered the seats to the Health Ministry citing the inability to identify the beneficiaries in October last year, the judge noted. Since the same was also accepted by the Health Ministry in March this year, no relief could be granted to the petitioner in the current academic year, he pointed out.
But surrendering of seats reserved for children with exceptional achievements, though maybe a policy matter, cannot be accepted if carried out without any rationale, the judge held. "When a long-standing policy is not followed, there must be compelling reasons. In this case, no such reasons are evident," he observed and issued the above direction.