MP high court strikes down Domicile criterion for medical colleges

The Madhya Pradesh high court on Monday struck down admission rule 6 of private medical colleges (MBBS and BDS) undergraduate courses for not providing a level playing field for domicile general category candidates as compared to those coming from other states.

The Madhya Pradesh high court on Monday struck down admission rule 6 of private medical colleges (MBBS and BDS) undergraduate courses for not providing a level playing field for domicile general category candidates as compared to those coming from other states.

The domicile criterion in rule 6 says candidates must be citizens of India, which means that the aspirants from Madhya Pradesh are treated at par with those from other states. Due to this provision, 500 out of the 555 medical seats in private medical colleges went to out-of-station students in the first round of counselling, advocate Aditya Sanghi for petitioner Abhinav Dubey argued.

“It is surprising the state issued separate gazette notifications on criteria of domicile for admissions in the government and private medical and dental colleges,” the counsel said.

A division bench of Justice RS Jha and Justice CV Sirpurkar said Rule 6 is ultra vires to provisions of Article 14 of the Constitution as it denies an equal opportunity to the general category candidates.

The court directed the state to take necessary steps to ensure that Madhya Pradesh students are allowed to participate in counselling and are allotted colleges as per the merit list of the 2016 NEET examination.