Hyderabad: A vacation bench comprising Justice R. Subhash Reddy and Justice M. Satyanarayana Murthy of the AP High Court on Thursday stayed an order passed by a single judge in a case regarding the seat matrix in post graduate medical admissions. The bench was hearing writ appeals by the state government and the NTR University of Health Sciences challenging the order of the single judge.
The single judge had ruled that in common pool category seats reserving seats for the categories of BC-A and BC-D women was illegal. Pooling together residuary seats to be filled by BC candidates does not amount to creating a new class within the BC category. It is permissible for respondents to pool residuary seats in broad specialties reserved for backward classes into a common pool.
The judge declared that the principle laid down by the Supreme Court in Ritesh R. Shah applies to admissions to post-graduate medical courses. The judge struck down clause II (viii) of the rules pertaining to PG medical admissions holding that the clause was arbitrary, discriminatory and unconstitutional.
Arguing on behalf of the government and the varsity advocate-general A. Sudarshan Reddy contended that the principles laid down by the Supreme Court in the Ritesh R. Shah case were not applicable to PG medical admissions and that they were applicable only to MBBS and BDS admissions. He said that PG medical course and graduation courses in medicine are different and both cannot be tagged together for applying the rule of reservation.
The bench agreed with the contention of the government, admitted the appeals and stayed the single judge order.
No relief for PG med hopefuls
A vacation bench comprising Justice R. Subhash Reddy and Justice M. Satyanarayana Murthy of the HC on Thursday declined to grant relief to aspirants of PG medical seats.
The bench pointed out that as the test was conducted afresh and results announced, there was no urgency to hear the plea.
The bench was hearing an appeal by Dr Vikram Reddy and 31 others challenging the order of a single judge upholding the decision of the government cancelling the Post-Graduation Medical Entrance Test (PGMET) 2014 and to conduct the test afresh. S. Ramachandra Rao, senior counsel appearing for the appellants contended that the decision of the state government violated SC orders.
Contending that the government and the NTR Health University had powers to either cancel or re-schedule any examination Advocate General A. Sudarshan Reddy said the varsity has already conducted the re-examination and announced the results.
While pointing out that there was no urgency to hear the petition at this juncture, the bench posted the case to a date after the summer vacation.
