With the Supreme Court upholding a Bombay high court (HC) decision to exclude reservation for Marathas in post-graduate (PG) medical admissions this year, the number of seats for general category students for medical courses has increased to 615 from 339, and to 100 from 33 in dental courses.

The state common entrance test (CET) cell issued revised seat matrices indicating the caste-wise distribution of PG medical and dental seats to be filled by the state, including state quota seats in private and government colleges as well as the all-India quota seats left vacant after the Centre’s admission process.

The seats earlier earmarked for Maratha students under the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) have now be transferred to the open category.

The Supreme Court on May 9 rejected the state government’s plea against a Bombay high court (HC) ruling on the SEBC quota. In its earlier seat matrices, the CET cell had implemented 16% SEBC or Maratha quota on all seats of private colleges, including 35% of the institute and 15% non-resident Indian (NRI) quota seats. The reserved seats for (SC), scheduled tribes (ST), other backward castes (OBC), vimukta jatis (VJ), nomadic tribes (NT) and economically weaker section (EWS) candidates were to be implemented in private colleges on the 50% seats available, after setting aside the other 50% for the institute and NRI quotas. However, in government colleges, the SEBC quota was calculated only on available seats, excluding the 50% AIQ seats, reducing the quota by half.

The HC had declared this distribution to be illegal.

Meanwhile, around 300 Maratha students and parents on Monday staged a protest at Azad Maidan, demanding inclusion of SEBC quota in admissions.

Taking note of the protest, the state extended the admission process, the deadline for which was Tuesday afternoon, by a week. State medical education minister Girish Mahajan said the government moved a proposal seeking extension to the district administration regulatory authority which is headed by a retired HC judge. “The authority has approved our request,” Mahajan said.

Mahajan said the government will deliberate on the issue of promulgating the ordinance for reserving seats with the advocate general and legal luminaries.

The state medical education minister also said that some students have filed a review petition in the Supreme Court against its decision on SEBC quota. “We are expecting some relief, which will help us solve the issue,” he said.

In the first round, 968 candidates, including 178 who applied under Maratha quota, were admitted to medical colleges, while 215 aspirants, including 28 Maratha quota students, got admission in dental colleges.

First Published: May 14, 2019 14:57 IST