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Court allows PU to admit students in six MDS courses for 2016-17
A division bench of the Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday allowed Panjab University to admit students in its six MDS (master of dental surgery) courses at Dr Harvansh Singh Judge Institute of Dental Sciences and Hospital.
A division bench of the Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday allowed Panjab University to admit students in its six MDS (master of dental surgery) courses at Dr Harvansh Singh Judge Institute of Dental Sciences and Hospital.
The order came from the high court division bench of justice SS Saron and justice HS Sidhu on the petition of the PU, its dental college and students. The admissions will take place on Tuesday, on the last date specified by the Supreme Court.
The Central government on March 31 had denied renewal of the permission to allow admissions for the second batch of the MDS courses in five specialties, along with its plan to start a new course.
The high court not only allowed admissions in five courses already being run by the university, but also gave nod to admit students in its new course.
A total of 17 students will be admitted, 14 in already-run courses and three in oral pathology and microbiology course being started this year. The five other courses include specialties conservative dentistry and endodontics, oral and maxillofacial surgery, orthodontics and dentofacial orthopedics, periodontics or periodontology, prosthodontics and crown and bridge.
The single judge bench last week had dismissed the PU’s petition on the grounds that it was the Central government’s prerogative to accept or reject the proposal on starting of courses.
Senior advocate Anmol Rattan Sidhu, who appeared on behalf of the PU, said the university had been allowed to start admissions on the basis of duplicate documents, as the court was told the students might have submitted their original documents in other colleges. “The permission has been given for all six courses,” he added.
Meanwhile, the detailed order is awaited.
The PU had argued that it had a principal since December 2014, and on the basis of documents submitted for the permission to start new courses in academic session in 2015-16, the PU was allowed to run these courses. But this year on “hyper technical grounds”, the DCI recommended disaffiliation of courses, stating that there was no regular principal at the college, which became the basis for the ministry of health to disaffiliate these courses.
On the other hand, the secondyear students of the college had sought extension of time for the admission in MDS courses, stating that exceptional circumstances warranted for such an order. Also they had argued that the PU, being a prestigious government institution — on a ground of not having a regular principal — disaffiliation should not have been effected by the Centre.
