Supreme Court restores 50% institutional quota in AMU, BHU

The Supreme Court on Wednesday restored the 50% institutional quota for in-house candidates in admission to postgraduate medical courses in Banaras Hindu University and Aligarh Muslim University.

The apex court also quashed the Allahabad High Court’s order that the benefit of service rendered in remote or difficult areas should be given for admission to PG courses only to those doctors of the Provincial Medical Health Services (PMHS), who have cleared MBBS examination from a college within the state of Uttar Pradesh.

A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and Deepak Gupta set aside the high court judgement that had quashed the in-house quota in both the central varsities. The court now allowed both the universities and other state-run medical colleges to fill up their seats by June 12.

“It would be pertinent to mention that in the central universities 100% admissions for MBBS courses are based on an all India examination. There is no state quota for seats in central universities like AMU and BHU or other central institutions like the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, etc. It is, therefore, apparent that the state can have no control over the seats in those medical colleges, which are part of the central universities/institutions,” the bench said.

Relying upon the ruling in the Saurabh Chaudri case, the apex court held that the high court “overstepped its jurisdiction” by quashing the institutional quota and directed that the seats therein were to be filled by candidates who passed out from state colleges, though the AMU, BHU, the Union government and the Medical Council of India were not even parties before it.

Citing the Uttar Pradesh government’s affidavit, the bench also said, “We see no reason as to why the benefit of weightage of 10% to 30% of marks as given in the Medical Council of India Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2000, should be limited to those in-service candidates of the PMHS category, who have graduated from within the state of UP.”