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MBBS admissions at GMCH-32: HC notice to Chandigarh admn on plea of defence personnel’s ward
The HC bench of justice GS Sandhawalia and justice Vikas Suri acted on the plea from one Ananya Goswami, daughter of a serving Colonel
chandigarh@hindustantimes.com
The Punjab and Haryana high court has sought a response from the UT administration on a plea challenging change in criteria for MBBS admissions at Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH- 32), Chandigarh.
The high court bench of justice GS Sandhawalia and justice Vikas Suri acted on the plea from one Ananya Goswami, daughter of a serving Colonel. The response has been sought by August 23.
In her plea, Goswami submitted that since 1992, the UT administration had been following Union government’s directives and granting waiver of domiciliary conditions to wards of defence personnel, thus not mandating them to pass Class 12 from Chandigarh schools and treating them as UT pool candidates. UT pool candidates get 85% seats in the college.
However, acting in a “grossly discriminatory manner”, much after the issuance of NEET notification on April 6, 2022, the administration introduced a new policy on July 15, restricting the defence personnel benefits only to those who had permanent residences in Chandigarh at the time of entry into service.
This condition had made the concession to wards of defence personnel as purposeless and nugatory because a defence personnel belonged to whole of the country and they ought to be given the option of choosing at least one state quota as per their choice, the plea said.
Goswami submitted that she had been preparing for MBBS admission since 2018 and applied for NEET 2022, whose last cut-off date was May 7, 2022. However, the rules of game changed in July 2022 much after the cut-off date.