The Maharashtra Assembly on Thursday cleared the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) Act amendment bill that upholds admissions of 253 students from the Maratha community to post-graduate medical and dental courses.

Madan Yerawar, minister of state for general administration department (GAD), told the state assembly that the government had amended section 16 of the SEBC Act by incorporating a sub-section that has validated all admissions under the 16% Maratha reservation.

The state governor had issued the ordinance to this effect last month after the Supreme Court (SC) scrapped the admissions granted under the SEBC Act to these students. An ordinance has to be approved by the state legislature within six months or it loses its validity. The bill can now become a law after it is approved by the legislative council.

“With the amendment in section 16 of the said act, we have ensured that in respect of medical and dental graduate and post-graduate courses, there shall be reservation in favour of SEBC class from the educational year 2019-20 and also for admission to other educational courses, including undergraduate courses, requiring passing of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) or any other national entrance test,’’ said chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in the statement of the bill.

The admission of the post-graduate students was struck down by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court (HC) on the grounds that the said act came into force after NEET started its admission process for these courses and the act itself says that it cannot be implemented with retrospective effect. The act came into force on November 30, while the application process had started on November 2.

The SC too upheld the HC’s decision, which resulted in the cancellation of admissions of around 253 postgraduate students. Following this, the state government issued an ordinance to uphold the admissions on May 22.

The Nagpur bench recently rejected a plea, seeking a stay on the ordinance to retain 16% reservation for Marathas under the SEBC category in post-graduate medical and dental courses.

First Published: Jun 21, 2019 00:49 IST