The Supreme Court on Monday clarified that 70 percent of post-graduate admissions for 2021-22 at the Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, should be made from the list of Christian minority students prepared by the State of Tamil Nadu on the basis of marks obtained in the NEET-PG examination.
The remaining 30 percent have to be filled by the college management in compliance with procedure followed in the previous academic year of 2020-21.
A division bench of Justices L. Nageshwar Rao and B.R Gavai was hearing the petition of the minority-run institution against the Tamil Nadu government seeking seat sharing at 50-50 ratio from two lists prepared by the state government and the institution respectively, for admissions in PG courses.
Senior Advocate Shyam Divan, appearing on the behalf of CMC, submitted that Christian aspirants were selected from Tamil Nadu for counselling in the UG course, which was opposed to the directions of the Apex Court, which had directed Tamil Nadu to fill the seats for minority from the national merit list. He further submitted that counselling in PG Course has exclusively done for TN candidates and alleged that the TN government was trying to make the petitioner college a provincial institution, from a national institution.
Amit Anand Tiwari, Additional Advocate General of Tamil Nadu, submitted that everything being done was in accordance to the procedure established by law and refuted Divan’s claim that the petitioner college had been using a national merit list for a`dmissions. He submitted that previously the college would send the government a list of names to be admitted and the same used to be approved, but now the government has realised its mistake and is working towards correcting it.
Senior Advocate Anitha Shenoy, appearing for aspiring PG students who had completed their UG from CMC, submitted that because of the concept of nativity being applied by the state government is leading to meritorious students losing out. She informed that her client’s names were part of the initial list made for counselling, but were removed in the latest list published by state government.
On January 19, the Apex Court had rejected CMC’s prayer for interim relief seeking permission to continue with the old method of selection, whereby students from over 23 zonal regions are admitted from lists sent by various Protestant churches/Christian organizations. The Court further directed the college to take PG admissions for the academic session 2021-2022 to be filled through the minority merit list prepared by Tamil Nadu.
AAG Amit Anand Tiwari appearing for Tamil Nadu had argued that the NEET regulations clearly set out that admissions to both MBBS and PG have to be done from the NEET merit list.
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