Supreme Court extends deadline to complete PG medical admissions by June 4

The Supreme Court on Friday gave the Maharashtra Common Entrance Test (CET) cell extension till June 4 to complete the admission process to postgraduate medical courses. A vacation bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Justice M R Shah and Justice A S Bopanna, also directed the state government to implement its order of May 30 in its true spirit.

“In the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case, we extend the time to complete the counselling and to complete the admission process in postgraduate medical and dental courses for the academic year 2019-20 as directed above up to June 4, 2019, failing which a very serious view shall be taken for not complying the interim order passed by this Court in its true spirit,” the bench stated in its order on Friday.

The order comes a day after the Supreme Court said the 10 per cent quota for economically weaker sections (EWS) could not be applied to postgraduate medical courses in Maharashtra for the academic year 2019-20 as the admission process had started long before the provision came into force.

Subsequently, the state CET cell cancelled admissions given to postgraduate medical courses under the 10 per cent EWS quota and released a revised merit list on Thursday.

However, students in the open category petitioned the court on Friday and stated that the reshuffling of seats was not being done.

Sudha Shenoy, convener of the Parents and Students Association for Medical Admissions, said those students who had not secured admissions in the previous rounds were allotted seats. But the students with higher merit were not upgraded as per the reshuffle. For instance, a student with a lower rank secured admission to one of the government colleges in Mumbai while a student with higher merit was given admission in a private college. Those who have got admission as per the higher merit should have been upgraded, which did not happen, said Shenoy.

Responding to the students’ plea, Nishant R Katneshwarkar, counsel for the Maharashtra government, said it wasn’t possible to reshuffle the entire process as the last date of counselling for admissions was May 31.

He requested the apex court for some more time to complete the entire admission process on the basis of the interim order passed by the court, including reshuffling, as then the admissions authority would be in a position to carry out the interim order passed by the court in its true spirit.

The SC vacation bench, in its order, directed the authorities to complete the process of admission, including reshuffling. Anand Rayate, state CET commissioner, told The Indian Express that all general quota students will get an opportunity following the cancellation of admissions under the EWS quota. “Those with higher merit will be given reshuffling opportunity and the merit list will be rescheduled as per today’s SC guidelines,” said Rayate.

However, he added that if students were given an opportunity to change their college preferences, then it would not be possible to complete the admission process even by June 4.