Admission cancellation: HC junks MBBS student’s plea Her Caste Certificate Was Found To Be Invalid

Admission cancellation: HC junks MBBS student’s plea Her Caste Certificate Was Found To Be Invalid

TIMES NEWS NETWORK   31.10.2024

Ahmedabad : The Gujarat high court turned down a petition by a medical student whose MBBS admission was cancelled after the state govt held her caste certificate invalid. As the student was pursuing the second year of MBBS, she argued that if her admission was cancelled, one MBBS seat would be wasted. She urged the court to allow her to finish her medical studies, for it would not cause any prejudice to the administration. 

However, Justice Sangeeta Vishen rejected this argument and stated, “It is equally true that the petitioner secured the admission depriving the genuine claim of the reserved candidate.” This case involved an MBBS student, Mrunal Chaudhary, who got admission under the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) quota in the Narendra Modi Medical College in Ahmedabad in 2022. It was a provisional admission, and its confirmation was subject to verification of the student’s caste certificate by a scrutiny committee. 

The committee found the student’s caste certificate as belonging to the ‘Teli community’ invalid, for she could not establish that her family was a permanent resident of Gujarat before April 1, 1978, a condition for caste certificate stipulated in a govt resolution in 1994. It is a cut-off date on which the SEBC quota was implemented by accepting the Bakshi Commission’s recommendations in Gujarat. The documents that the student provided showing her family’s existence in Gujarat prior to 1978 were found inadequate. The student also argued that she secured 507 marks in NEET-UG in 2022. In this college, the cut-off for the open category was 515, and therefore she secured admission in the reserved category on the strength of her caste certificate. If the scrutiny process had been quick, she could have got admission in the open category in any other medical college.

 The HC clarified that hers  was only a provisional admission subject to verification. After referring to the provisions of the rules and the Gujarat Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes (Regulation of Issuance and Verifica tion of Caste Certificate) Act, 2018, the HC said, “The caste certificate was not in tune with the provisions of govt resolutions and hence, as per the provisions of sub-rule (9) of Rule 5 of the Rules of 2017, the provisional admission of the petitioner stood cancelled. Therefore, this court does not find any error committed by the respondent No.1 (state govt) in cancelling the caste certificate, so also the admission of the petitioner and hence, the petition does not deserve to be entertained and is hereby dismissed.” 

Panipuriwala’s son too lost MBBS seat, but bounced back Alpesh Rathod’s case was no different when his SEBC caste certificate was held invalid by the scrutiny committee, resulting in the cancellation of his MBBS admission in the reserved category in 2023. Rathod, whose father is a panipuri vendor in Meghraj town of Aravalli district, approached the HC, which said that Rathod had to suffer for no fault of his, but the HC upheld the state govt’s decision of cancelling his caste certificate and the medical admission. Rathod approached the Supreme Court, which stayed the state govt’s decision, and Rathod was allowed to pursue his MBBS. However, Rathod showed grit, took the NEET-UG exam once again, and bettered his earlier score of 613 out of 720 in 2022. He secured 644 marks this year, and has been admitted to the MBBS course in the open category. 

He withdrew his appeal from the SC and put an end to the litigation.