A division bench of the Hyderabad High Court consisting of Justice V. Ramasubramanian and Justice T. Rajani on Thursday said the open category seats in super speciality medical courses in NTR (A.P.) and Kaloji (T.S.) Health Universities would be filled based upon the NEET ranking and on India-level competition. The main issue of applicability of Article 371-D, presidential order to the institutions in both States in the light of the bifurcation would be decided in the final hearing.
The bench was passing the interim orders while vacating the stay granted earlier. Several writ petitions were filed contending that all open seats in the institutions affiliated to the NTR Health University, Vijayawada, and the Kaloji University of Health Sciences, Warangal, had to be filled based upon the presidential order. Some other petitions opposed this. The Article 371-D and the consequential presidential order mandate that 85% seats in a region (Telangana, coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema) should be reserved for local candidates.
The rest should be open seats for which students from all three regions could compete. Thus all the seats were filled by students from the undivided State.
This academic year the authorities declared that the 15% open seats would be thrown open for all students from all over India as per the NEET rankings. This was contested by several students. Meanwhile, some students got admission in other States as per the rankings. Their admissions were sought to be cancelled as the authorities here decided to fill all seats with either the AP or the Telangana students. The court had also granted interim orders to stop all the counselling. The students whose admission in other States was cancelled approached the court contending that the 15% open seats could be filled by any one from India based upon the NEET ranking and many students from AP and Telangana got the admissions in other States.
The bench traced the history of the formation of Andhra in 1952 and then the formation of AP after the merger of the Telangana coastal and Rayalseema (ceded) districts. It reminded that Article 371-D and the presidential order were brought into existence to deal with the peculiar circumstances prevailing in Telangana and Andhra areas and the aspirations of Telangana.