Hearing a petition by Dr Lakshmikantha, Dr Rashmi and two others, Justice Abdul Nazeer directed the State Department of Health and Family Welfare (DHFW), Commissioner for Health and Family Welfare Services and Director, Health and Family Welfare, to redo the counselling as per the revised merit list. The court has also directed that 31 private respondents be excluded from the merit list.
The petitioners, all MBBS degree holders and working as medical officers in the DHFW, had moved the High Court challenging the inclusion of ineligible candidates.
Thirty-one candidates who were ineligible and whose candidature was supposed to be rejected at the stage of scrutiny of applications by the heads of departments, before forwarding the list to Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), were permitted to take the entrance test and their names were included in the provisional merit list.