Now, MBBS aspirants in Tamil Nadu can join government medical colleges, even if they were undergoing some other professional course in private colleges earlier.

The Supreme Court on Thursday set aside a High Court order, which instructed the Tamil Nadu government to impose the restriction on the grounds that the seats occupied by the students would go waste, if they were allowed to join MBBS course in government colleges.

The High Court had passed the order on July 9, acting on a public interest petition filed before it on July 4, 2007.
The petition, filed by C Maria Arul Rex and others, sought a direction to the state government to prevent students, other than those who had cleared their higher secondary examination in the current year, students from private medical colleges and other professional courses from joining the medical courses from 2007-08.
G P Anusha and seven other students appealed to the Supreme Court against the High Court order. 

They contended that the move to prevent such students from joining the MBBS course from the current session would be illegal and unjust as they had been preparing for the examination for the past several years.

Upon this, a bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan vacated the stay order of the High Court and directed the authorities to allow the affected students to participate in counselling, which was stalled on July 10.
“Do not stretch the provisions of the Constitution too far to deny the rights of the citizens by doing this. You are stifling their education, which is their right. Everybody has a right to join a government college. How can you deny the right of a student from studying in a government college,” observed the bench while expressing its anguish.