Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court has directed the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (Nims) to consider allocation of seats on a rotation basis, by converting the Andhra University seat to an Osmania University seat every three years in branches having four seats.
In branches where eight seats are available, one seat from Sri Venkateswara University (SVU) is to be converted to an OU seat every alternate year, the court said on Friday.
The court found that the method that Nims was following was costing Osmania University a seat every alternate year and SVU gaining one seat, against the spirit and intent of the Presidential Order 1979.
Justice Suresh Kumar Kait was disposing of two petitions, one is seeking a direction to the AP and Telangana state governments to fill the seats in DM (Neurology) in Nims under the terms of the Presidential Order, and GOP No 646 dated 10.07.1979, by giving preference to the higher fraction as per the fractional entitlement in proportion to the ratio fixed in the Presidential Order and to allot two seats in DM (Neurology) under local area reservation to the SVU.
The other petition sought to declare the action of the Nims in issuing notification for Nimset-SS for the academic year 2016 without indicating the local area reservations, as indicated in the previous notifications, as illegal and arbitrary.
Counsel for the petitioners submitted that in GOP No. 646, local areas of the state of Andhra Pradesh were defined for the purpose of admission into educational institutions. The local areas of statewide universities are AU, OU and SVU.
In the Presidential Order, the local area seats were distributed in the ratio of 42:36:22 to AU, OU and SVU respectively. The number of seats reserved, in aggregate, in favour of local candidates, is in relation to the three universities. The number shall be 85 per cent of available seats. Any fraction of seats is counted as one, provided there is at least one unreserved seat.
The petitioners said that the Andhra University region had eight districts, Osmania University 10 and SVU region five districts. Therefore, the fraction 0.52 in OU allocation cannot be counted lesser than 0.54 in the SVU allocation. If only the fraction had to be considered, 0.54 would have been given the preference.
While ordering Nims to adopt rotation basis for allocation of seats, the judge felt that the arrangement ordered by the court would give equitable rights to three varsities and none of the universities would be deprived of their legitimate share.
When some of the aggrieved parties moved the appeal against the single judge order, the division bench refused to intervene and directed the Nims to follow the rotation method.
