The Supreme Court will hear the petition filed by medical aspirants seeking direction to allow them to upload online applications for MBBS/BDS courses under the Competent Authority Quota, “A” Category as the same was denied by the Dr NTR University of Health Sciences due to late processing.
The petition has been filed by K Abdul Gani Shaikh aand Davvuri Saladi Spandana against the orders passed by the Andhra Pradesh High Court, which had dismissed their petition.
The matter came up before the vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and Aniruddha Bose on Wednesday. The bench listed the matter before the regular bench on January 4, 2021.
The petitioners contended in their petition that though they are eligible for making the online applications for admission into MBBS and BDS courses under “A” Category, because of Covid-19 pandemic and as some of the family members of the petitioners fell sick apart from other ailments, they could not upload their applications online in time. When they approach the medical college, the same was not allowed.
Before the High Court of Andhra Pradesh, Standing Counsel G. Vijay Kumar, for NTR University, submitted that the last date for uploading the application was over long back and the merit list was also prepared. Therefore, the question of permitting petitioners for uploading their application at a belated stage, would not arise. He also submitted that off-line applications are not permissible under the existing system.
The Andhra Pradesh High Court division bench of Justices C. Praveen Kumar and D. Ramesh had noted in its order, “A perusal of the material on record would show that the last date for uploading applications was November 21, 2020. It may be true that the family members of the petitioners fell sick, but when there is no facility for permitting off-line applications and when the counselling is scheduled to commence in a day or two, we feel that it may not be proper to give a positive directions to the respondents to accept the applications of the petitioner. Hence, the writ petition devoid of merits and the same is accordingly dismissed.”