HC stays MD/MS counselling in Haryana

The HC bench of justice RK Jain and justice Jaswant Singh passed the order on the plea of Dr Vikram Pal and others, who had approached the high court challenging the April 15 notification on the procedure for admission to MD/MS courses with details about reservation in various categories.

The Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday stayed counselling for admissions to postgraduate medical courses in Haryana.

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The HC bench of justice RK Jain and justice Jaswant Singh passed the order on the plea of Dr Vikram Pal and others, who had approached the high court challenging the April 15 notification on the procedure for admission to MD/MS courses with details about reservation in various categories. The counselling for 156 seats was scheduled to be held on May 4 and May 5.

They had argued that the reservation in any case could not go beyond 50% as laid down by the Supreme Court in Indra Sawhney case in 1992. The HC was told that reservation went up to 87% as per the notification put out by the Haryana government. A response from the state has been sought by May 6.

The government had reasoned that 25% seats for institutional preference and 5% seats for the physically handicapped as well as 10% for the economic weaker section category should not be counted and if these categories are excluded, the reservation does not cross the cap of 50%.

However, the bench observed that their response does not substantiate the argument as petitioners had demonstrated that out of the total 156 seats, the open category seats have got reduced to 31 only.