State can reserve 85% of pvt medical seats for Maharashtra students

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court has declined to interfere with the domicile requirement for medical college admissions in Maharashtra for the academic year 2016-17. The HC rejected a plea filed by private unaided medical colleges to stay a new rule formulated by the state in August that requires students to have a domicile in Maharashtra. The HC admitted the challenge to the rules, but allowed the state to implement them this year.

The order was issued by a bench of chief justice Manjula Chellur and justice M S Sonak.

The state will now carry out admissions under the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for all state medical colleges on the basis of the new domicile based eligibility criteria. For admission, students would either need a domicile certificate or should have passed both, the secondary and higher secondary board examinations from Maharashtra.

A person needs to have stayed in Maharashtra for 15 years continuously to get a domicile certificate, which is issued by a district magistrate.

The rule sets aside 85% of the seats for admission on the basis of the domicile criterion, and the remaining 15% as institutional seats (see graphic).

The HC also vacated a stay it had issued earlier on the admission process. The state will now publish the merit list it had prepared and proceed with the admissions, which have to be completed by September 30, a deadline set by the Supreme Court.

The new rule had been challenged via a bunch of petitions, including one filed by Mahatma Gandhi Vidya Mandir, which runs a dental college in Nashik, and Association of Private Unaided Medical and Dental Colleges, which termed the criterion "too restrictive and unconstitutional".