CHENNAI: Worst fears of the latest batch of Class 12 students hoping for an MBBS seat may come true with the Tamil Nadu government on Monday telling the Madras high court that students from previous batches cannot be prevented from taking part in the ongoing admission counselling. While lawyers representing the fresh batch of students said more than 1,000 of the available 2,257 seats will be garnered by students of previous batches, owing to their better cutoff marks, the government maintained that only 548 seats may go to them, constituting a mere 24% of the seats up for grabs.
The high court reserved its orders on a petition seeking to bar Class 12 students of previous years from the MBBS admission process this year, but once again made it clear that while counselling could go ahead, authorities should not issue any allotment letters or admit cards to students till it delivers the verdict
Advocate general of Tamil Nadu A L Somayaji, arguing before a division bench headed by Justice Satish K Agnihotri on Monday, said the process of evaluation, ranking and selection of candidates were exclusively in the domain of the government's administrative functions. Making it clear that neither the Tamil Nadu Admission to Professional Educational Institutions Act nor the prospectus barred eligible students from previous batches from taking part in counselling this year, he said authorities could not traverse beyond that and deny them the opportunity.
"A judicial review of interference in educational matters is very limited, and interference is permissible only if any violation of law, statutory rules or regulations is found to be mala fide," he said, adding that no guidelines issued by the Medical Council of India or other competent authority prevented students of previous years from seeking admission to MBBS course.
On Monday, many candidates from previous years too joined the fray and argued that they could not be shut out of the counselling exercise when no rule prevented their participation. Many of them did not join any course last year, took a chance and waited for their turn this year, their counsel argued.
Earlier, seeking to drive home how even a margin of 0.25 marks would play havoc with medical ranking, V Raghavachari, counsel for fresh batch of students, said a mere quarter of a mark difference between the two batches would result in a loss of 717 seats for the students of 2014-15 batch.
Senior counsel Isaac Mohanlal, echoing similar views, said more than 50% of the available seats would go to previous years' students. This, he said, would have a cascading effect as the entire second year BDS seats would fall vacant as most of them would be able to secure MBBS admission this year. BDS seats in private colleges too would go similarly vacant, he said. Students have taken their transfer certificates to shift from BDS to MBBS or from payment seat in MBBS to free seat, he said.
The bench, reserving its orders and asking counsel for all candidates to submit two-page written submissions by Tuesday, again made it clear that while counselling could go ahead, authorities should not issue any allotment letters or admit cards to students till court delivers its verdict.
A total of 31,525 applications have been received for 2,257 medical seats this year. Of which, 4,679 students belong to previous batches, and they seek to take advantage of a big dip in cutoff marks this year.
The high court reserved its orders on a petition seeking to bar Class 12 students of previous years from the MBBS admission process this year, but once again made it clear that while counselling could go ahead, authorities should not issue any allotment letters or admit cards to students till it delivers the verdict
Advocate general of Tamil Nadu A L Somayaji, arguing before a division bench headed by Justice Satish K Agnihotri on Monday, said the process of evaluation, ranking and selection of candidates were exclusively in the domain of the government's administrative functions. Making it clear that neither the Tamil Nadu Admission to Professional Educational Institutions Act nor the prospectus barred eligible students from previous batches from taking part in counselling this year, he said authorities could not traverse beyond that and deny them the opportunity.
"A judicial review of interference in educational matters is very limited, and interference is permissible only if any violation of law, statutory rules or regulations is found to be mala fide," he said, adding that no guidelines issued by the Medical Council of India or other competent authority prevented students of previous years from seeking admission to MBBS course.
On Monday, many candidates from previous years too joined the fray and argued that they could not be shut out of the counselling exercise when no rule prevented their participation. Many of them did not join any course last year, took a chance and waited for their turn this year, their counsel argued.
Earlier, seeking to drive home how even a margin of 0.25 marks would play havoc with medical ranking, V Raghavachari, counsel for fresh batch of students, said a mere quarter of a mark difference between the two batches would result in a loss of 717 seats for the students of 2014-15 batch.
Senior counsel Isaac Mohanlal, echoing similar views, said more than 50% of the available seats would go to previous years' students. This, he said, would have a cascading effect as the entire second year BDS seats would fall vacant as most of them would be able to secure MBBS admission this year. BDS seats in private colleges too would go similarly vacant, he said. Students have taken their transfer certificates to shift from BDS to MBBS or from payment seat in MBBS to free seat, he said.
The bench, reserving its orders and asking counsel for all candidates to submit two-page written submissions by Tuesday, again made it clear that while counselling could go ahead, authorities should not issue any allotment letters or admit cards to students till court delivers its verdict.
A total of 31,525 applications have been received for 2,257 medical seats this year. Of which, 4,679 students belong to previous batches, and they seek to take advantage of a big dip in cutoff marks this year.
