After a long wait, the Supreme Court finally had comforting news for medical aspirants in the state by ordering an extension till October 7, for completing deemed university medical/dental admission. The earlier deadline set by the apex court for concluding the medical/dental admission for the academic year was September 30. The Court further added in its order that it would not interfere with the admissions carried out by the deemed universities before September 16, and that the vacant seats that remain will have to be filled by centralised counselling.
While hearing the Civil Appeal No. 9835 of 2016 between State of Maharashtra & ORS vs. Dr. D. Y. Patil Vidyapeeth & ORS along with other related civil appeals, Justice A.K. Sikri and Justice L. Nageswara Rao passed the order yesterday, on September 28, 2016. “Since it may not be possible to complete the process of admission by September 30, 2016, we extend the time to complete the admissions by October 7, 2016,” said the order. The court further ordered that no medical seats should remain vacant and the admission to rest of the vacant seats will only be conducted through centralised counselling. A committee of the state government, which will include one representative from each of the eight deemed universities in the state will manage the counselling.
After the Supreme Court order, Mahatma Gandhi Medical Institute of Health Sciences, one of the eight deemed universities in the state has notified students to report at the university for admission on September 29. The notice stated that they would take admission of the students on the basis of merit list published on the website on September 12, 2016. In another deemed university, Pravara Institute of Medical Sciences, all the 170 MBBS seats were already filled before September 16. The university however, has 60 seats in BDS (Bachelor of Dental Science) to offer to the medical aspirants through common counselling.
While talking to PaGaLGuY, a senior official of D.Y. Patil University stated that the university is going to follow the apex court’s order and fill up the rest of the seats. “We have conducted the majority of our admission for MBBS/BDS courses for the academic year before September 12, 2016. We have already begun classes for students as a lot of academic time has been lost due to court cases and litigations. We will respond to the authority conducting the admission for the rest of the seats when we receive any communication from them,” said the senior official.
The medical aspirants, after the apex court order, are hopeful of getting a college of their liking at a regulated fee through the centralised counselling for deemed universities. The number of vacant seats can also increase in the deemed universities due to cancelation of seats. These seats will get filled in the second round and third round of centralised counselling, details of which will be made public shortly by the concerned authority.
Karan Singh Chhabra, a medical aspirant from the state who has already taken admission in one of the deemed universities in the state, seemed happy with the court order. “Students who have been admitted to two or more deemed universities will surrender their seats and the seats will go under centralised counselling. This will give fare chance to the students getting admitted through counselling conducted by the DMER,” said Karan.
Yesterday’s court order has put an end to the confusion caused to medical aspirants after the apex court stayed the Bombay High Court order of August 30, allowing deemed universities to carry out their own admission. The SC was supposed to give its judgment on September 19, which got delayed till yesterday as the court was hearing similar petitions raised by other parties.
“I think the order is a win-win situation for all the parties. It will also ensure that students already admitted and willing to continue studying need not undergo fresh set of counselling,” concluded Karan.