SC New Directives for admission in MBBS for meritorious candidates
Supreme Court has taken out a new directive for meritorious students who have been denied MBBS admissions and have lost one full academic year for no fault of his/her.According to the court, compensation could only be an additional remedy not a substitute for restitution remedy like allowing admission to the college.This historic decision was taken in case by S. Krishna Sradhavs The State of Andhra Pradesh & Ors, who was denied admission into MBBS in spite of having submitted documents to take admission in sports and game category.
Sradha immediately approached the High Court seeking admission in the reserved quota of sports and games quota. By the time the petition was heard, the academic session had already started. The HC observed that no direction can be issued to grant admission to the candidate for the academic session, as the time for admission had expired. The HC, however, granted her a compensation of Rs 5 lakh.
The apex court of SC reconsidered admission keeping in considered two points:
First, whether a the candidate is meritorious.
Second, the grant of compensation by the court is not an appropriate relief to such candidate.
Supreme Court has taken out new directives for MBBS admission for deserving students.
- Fast disposal of case–
If the candidate has approached the court at the earliest and without any delay for admission in medical course, all the efforts shall be made by the concerned court to dispose of the proceedings by giving priority and at the earliest.
- Create additional seats in rarest of rare cases –
Supreme Court directive provides admission to the candidate in the same year by directing to increase the seats, if the court finds that there is no fault attributable to the candidate and the candidate has pursued his/her legal right expeditiously without any delay and there is fault only on the part of the authorities.
- Allow admission in next year, if not possible in the current year –
In case the Court is of the opinion that no relief of admission can be granted to such a candidate in the very academic year and such candidate/student has approached the court at the earliest and without any delay, the court can mould the relief and direct the admission to be granted to such a candidate in the next academic year by issuing appropriate directions by directing to increase in the number of seats.
- Compensation could be an additional remedy –
In an appropriate case the Court may award the compensation to such a meritorious candidate who for no fault of his/her has to lose one full academic year and who could not be granted any relief of admission in the same academic year.
The SC directions will not apply to Post Graduate Medical Course.