Supreme Court dismisses plea against institutional preference quota in PG courses in AIIMS like institutions

New Delhi The Supreme Court has dismissed a plea against institutional preference quota in Institute of National Importance Combined Entrance Test (INI-CET) for admission to PG courses in the AIIMS-like premier institutions in the country.

A bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Alok Aradhe declined to entertain the writ petition filed by Dr Sukrit Nanda M and others upon hearing senior advocate P B Suresh and advocate Vipin Nair for the petitioners and advocate Dushyant Parashar for the AIIMS, New Delhi.

"Having heard the counsel for the parties at a considerable length and on carefully perusing the material placed on record, we are not inclined to entertain these petitions under Article 32 of the Constitution,'' the bench said.

However, the court kept the question of law open for being considered in an appropriate case.

In its contention, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi submitted that it scrupulously followed the orders and guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in the judgments in the case of AIIMS Student Union Vs AIIMS & Others (2001), Saurabh Chaudri and Others Vs Union of India and Others (2003) (Constitution bench), and order of May 13, 2022 in Student Association AIIMS, Bhopal and Others Vs AIIMS, New Delhi and Others.

"Institutional Preference cannot exceed 50% of the total unreserved seats in any institution and also cannot exceed 50% of the MBBS seats at that institution. The actual number of seats permissible under institutional preference varies from 18% to 24% of all the PG seats available at various institutions," it said.

It also said as per the directives of the Supreme Court, there is no subject-wise 'reservation' of seats for institutional preference, the seats allocated for institutional preference can be variable in each discipline, subject to the overall condition that they will not exceed 50 per cent of the unreserved seats at that institution.

This is different from the subject-wise reservations that are provided only for constitutionally approved reservations i.e. SC-15 per cent, ST-7.5 per cent, OBC 27 per cent, EWS-10 per cent, PWD 5 per cent, it asserted.

It also claimed the petitioner's failure to secure a seat was purely due to restrictive choices and not a fallacy of the institutional preference implementation.