MP High Court directs that vacant NRI quota seats be transferred to the general category in the mop-up round
A division bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court has disposed of a petition filed by a Bhopal-based student seeking the inclusion of 48 vacant NRI quota seats in the second round of NEET-PG counselling. The court was informed that these seats would be made available to general quota students in the mop-up round. The vacancies arose after it was discovered that students who had secured admission under the NRI quota were actually local residents, leading to the cancellation of their admissions, reported timesofindia.indiatimes.com.
Court intervenes after allegations of misallocation in NRI quota admissions
The petition, filed by student Shekhar, challenged the allocation of NRI quota seats to local students in postgraduate medical courses. The division bench, comprising Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva and Justice Vinay Saraf, sought a response from the director of medical education within 24 hours. Shekhar argued that there are 1,117 NRI quota seats in medical PG programs in the state, and in the first round of counselling, 84 such seats were allotted—48 of which were occupied by non-NRI students.
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The petitioner alleged that the education department had not transferred these seats to the general quota in the second round of counselling to create opportunities for selling them during the mop-up round. With the second round of PG counselling set to conclude on February 2, only the mop-up round remained for allocation
Education department defends its actions, petitioner withdraws case
Senior Counsel Aditya Sanghi, appearing for the petitioner, cited Supreme Court directives stating that no medical seat should be left vacant. However, he argued that the director of medical education had not taken the necessary steps to fill the 48 seats.
In response, the director of medical education clarified that as per Rule 14 (a) (2) of the MP Medical Education Admission Rules, 2018, unfilled NRI quota seats are transferred to the general quota during the mop-up round based on merit and student preferences. Following this explanation, petitioner Shekhar withdrew the case, and the court disposed of the petition.
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