Chennai: Madras High Court has directed the state government to complete the process of selection of medical post graduate degree/diploma course in the medical education and proceed with the admission for the academic year 2018-19.
“It is made clear that the weightage (incentive) by way of additional marks ought not to be extended to A3 category (The identification on the basis of the areas of specialization alone), which is not entitled to such benefit,” said a division bench comprising Justices V. Parthiban and P.D. Audikesavalu.
The bench was partially allowing appeals filed by the state government and modifying the order of the single judge, which quashed two G.Os, notifying the remote and difficult areas for awarding incentive marks to the in service candidates for admission to PG medical courses for the academic year 2018-19.
The bench said, “before parting with these appeals, we also take note of certain concerned reservations expressed by the parties and the manner in which the areas identified by the Committee disregarding certain directions issued by the Supreme Court. In each time of such identification and categorization takes place, it is always put to challenge by the aggrieved section who were omitted to be included or section which is held not entitled and the admission process gets completely derailed every academic year. In such event, the courts are forced to pass orders more on the basis of expediency only to protect the interest of the public at large. In order to avoid such recurrence in future towards categorization of doctors who are employed in remote, difficult and rural areas for the purpose of benefit of additional weightage as envisaged in proviso to sub-clause IV of Regulation 9, it is suggested that the Committee of experts may be headed by a retired judge of the high court”.
This was more so, when repeatedly such identification or categorization was put to challenge in the legal forum, so that the experts who were part of the committee, will have the benefit of legal acumen from the judge concerned while making the recommendations for identifying the areas in tune with the proviso to sub-clause IV of Regulation 9 and also in line with the directions of the Supreme Court and other high courts. “We do hope that the government bear this in mind while constituting any further committee/s for future academic years in respect of admissions to Post Graduate Degree/Diploma courses,” the bench added.
