Madras High Court orders medical seat for Forward Community candidate

Justice V Ramasubramanian rejected the contention of the Registrar of the Annamalai University that the TN Act would not apply to it as it was a self-financing institution established in 1928.

The judge pointed out that the state government by Act 20 of 2013 had completely taken over the Annamalai University and so it must follow whatever reservation norms applied to the other state institutions. He slammed the university for claiming self-financing status despite having enjoyed huge government funds, whose monetary value as on date would work out to Rs 2,300 crore.

A government affidavit showed that the money it had pumped into Annamalai University was “almost equivalent to the total amount of money invested in 12 universities in the state”, said the judge.

The Supreme Court had held that the overall reservations should be limited to 50 per cent and in the case of Tamil Nadu, the state's total quota of 69 per cent could be met with by creating additional seats so as to accommodate the OC candidates who would have got seats if the 50 per cent quota was adhered to.

In the present case of Vaithi Viswanathan, the boy had secured 197.50 marks out of total 200 marks in the aggregate of the relevant subjects considered for MBBS admission. His rank was 287 and he found that 223 candidates above him in the order of merit had absented at the counseling. Consequently, he was within the first 75 candidates in the merit list and would have certainly been selected if the Annamalai University had pegged its SC/ST, BC reservations at 50 per cent.

Considering all aspects of the case scrupulously and exhaustively, the judge ordered the university to consider Vaithi's case “within one week”.