PG medical aspirants approach HC against 20% in-service quota

The petition not only demands the implementation of the new quota be postponed by a year but also reduces the reservation for the benefit of PG medical aspirants

Mumbai: A group of postgraduate (PG) medical aspirants on Thursday filed a petition in the Bombay high court (HC) against the introduction of a 20% reservation for in-service medical officers starting this year. Students feel this delay in introducing the quota, after the admissions process commenced, will affect the admissions chances of students who have already registered for the 2022-23 academic year.

PG medical aspirants approach HC against 20% in-service quota

“Introduction of new quotas in medical admissions is becoming a norm and this is eventually affecting our chances of admission. Any changes to the admissions criteria should be implemented before the release of the admissions brochure, which is already released for the 2022-23 academic year,” said a PG medical aspirant.

The petition not only demands the implementation of the new quota be postponed by a year but also reduces the reservation for the benefit of PG medical aspirants. “As per the provisional list of registered candidates for the state admissions process this year, fewer than 70 in-service medical officers have registered while the government has kept aside 250 seats for them. This is unfair to students from the general/open category,” added the student.

Until 2017, in-service medical officers had a 50% reservation of seats only in post MBBS Diploma courses and not in MD/MS courses. The reservation was discontinued post-2017 as demand for diploma courses was reduced.

In January this year, the Bombay high court heard a plea by a medical officer who sought for the in-service quota to be restored for the 2021-22 academic year. In March, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government announced a 25% quota for in-service medical officers, but a GR to the effect was pending.

On Monday, the Eknath Shinde-BJP government released a government resolution (GR) confirming that 20% of PG medical seats will now be kept aside for in-service medical officers.

On Friday morning, lawyers representing the agitated students requested the Bombay HC to hear the matter at the earliest. “The first seat allocation list is scheduled to be released in the first week of October, and we are hoping the HC hears our case before that so the implementation of the 20% quota is stalled,” said another student.