Reservation Stands for State Board Quota in Tamilnadu MBBS and BDS Admissions

After the protests against NEET, the Tamilnadu medical college admissions will now stave it off through reservation for state board quota. According to this reservation, 85% of the Tamilnadu MBBS and BDS seats be allocated for state board quota and the rest 15% for the other board school graduates.

Citing discrimination, some petitioners, requested the Madras High Court to stay the order and allow equal allocation of seats for all the candidates who had cleared NEET. The petitioners submitted that the allocation of seats in medical colleges on the basis of the Board of Education has been frowned upon and quashed by the Supreme Court.

High Court's response to reservation on MBBS seats

However, the Madras High Court today refused to stay a Tamil Nadu government order. Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana declined to grant any interim stay on the government's order while hearing a plea by one Darnish Kumar and two others, challenging the June 22 order.

Clarity Sought

The bench, however, issued notices to the Health and Family Welfare Department's secretary, Medical Education's additional director, the Selection Committee's secretary and the Medical Council of India, seeking their stands on the plea by July 5.

Supreme Court order

The Supreme Court has clearly stated that when admission is based on entrance examination NEET, it should make no difference whether the qualifying examination is conducted by the state board or Central Board of Secondary Education because no discrimination can be made between the schools affiliated to both the boards, they submitted.

Petitioner's argument

The petitioners further stated that once a common merit list is prepared for the purpose of grant of admission to MBBS and BDS courses based on NEET results, the only permissible reservation is in favour of students who have studied in schools situated within Tamil Nadu.

Therefore, it is impermissible for distribution of seats on the basis of the school board and therefore such segregation of seats would amount to discrimination among students, he added.