CHENNAI: The Madras HC has held that private linguistic minority medical colleges are bound by the provision of the Post-Graduate Medical Education Reservations (PGMER), 2023 issued by the National Medical Commission (NMC) and the agreements made with the government to reserve PG medical seats for the government quota as per the applicable laws of the state or union territory.
The court dismissed a petition filed by Venkateshwara Medical College and Research Centre in Puducherry which sought the court to quash the July 22, 2024 notification issued by the director-cum-nodal officer (Medical Education), Puducherry government providing for surrendering 50% PG seats for government quota; and prayed for treating all its PG seats as All India Management Quota to be filled by it.
Rejecting to the contention of the petitioner that ‘memorandum of agreement’ entered with the government in 2015 applies only to the UG seats and not for PG seats, Justice Singh reasoned that reservation of PG seats is also one of the subject matters of terms of the agreement and so the petitioner is bound by the agreement and also to share the PG seats as well to the government quota.
The petitioner institute submitted that PGMER, 2023 does not contain any clauses similar to 9 (7) of the repealed PGMER, 2000 for provision of government quota seats and it need not provide such quota since being a minority institution.
Additional government pleader for Puducherry government B Ramasamy pointed out that the petitioner college already agreed to share 50% of the seats at the time of commencement of the institute as per an agreement entered into in compliance of the ‘essentiality certificate’.