Quashing rules on 'domicile': SC seeks K'taka's reply

A group of doctors have approached the Supreme Court challenging the validity of the Karnataka government rules mandating 10 years of academic study in the state for a candidate to qualify for admission to 50 % institutional seats in Post Graduate courses in private medical colleges.

On Wednesday, a bench of Justices Arun Mishra, Mohan M Shantanagoudar and Navin Sinha asked the Karnataka government to file its response to the petition filed by K Sourabh and others.

The court put the petition for consideration on April 8.

"In the meantime, reply affidavit, if any, may be filed," the bench told the Karnataka government, represented by senior advocate Basava Prabhu Patil.

The petitioners, represented by senior advocate Nidhesh Gupta, contended the eligibility criteria published on March 16 by the Karnataka Examination Authority in a way imposed domicile condition.

This was contrary to the apex court's orders, which had set aside identical conditions in 2014-15 and 2018-19 for being violative of the right to equality.

The petitioners have qualified the NEET-PG test, after completing their MBBS and BDS courses from Karnataka's medical colleges. They said they got admission to undergraduate courses on the basis of 15% all India seats.

"While there is no embargo across all seats as was the case in the academic year 2018-19, the state of Karnataka in the garb of institutional preferences, has stipulated that for 50% of institutional seats in private medical colleges, the domicile requirement is mandatory," their petition stated.

They sought a direction to quash the condition stating that the candidate must have mandatorily studied for 10 academic years from class I and 12 for being eligible for admission to 50% institutional seats in private medical colleges in Karnataka.