SC sets aside HC order, says no need to recast merit list
FARIDKOT: In a relief to the Punjab government and Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS), Faridkot, the Supreme Court on Thursday set aside the order of the Punjab and Haryana high court directing the university to recast the merit list for admission to postgraduate medical courses.
The state government has been directed to proceed with the counselling process. The BFUHS has already conducted the first counselling from April 13 to 15.The notification for the examination was out in October 2016 and exam held in January 2017. The university will conclude the counselling process by May 31.
Hailing the judgement, BFUHS vice-chancellor Raj Bahadur said: “Recasting of merit would have been a mammoth task which could not have been completed within the deadline as set by the Supreme Court. The university has invited online applications from candidates who are eligible with the reduced cut-off of percentile for NEET-PG 2017 as per the directions of the Union government by May 29, 2017, till 10am. Counselling will be conducted on May 30 and 31,” he said.
Regulations say all doctors in government service were entitled for an incentive of 10% marks (in addition to total marks obtained in NEET-National Eligibility Test) for each year’s experience/ service in remote and difficult areas, with a maximum of 30% marks for three-year experience/ service.
During the hearing, the university authorities claimed that they had fixed incentive of 30% marks only for Punjab Civil Med- ical Services (PCMS) doctors with four and six years experience and not for the doctors with an experience up to three years.
Rural medical officers, who had one to three years experience, had also sought similar incentives.
The Punjab and Haryana high court had last month directed the government and the BFUHS to recast merit list for admission to PG medical courses by granting benefit of service in remote areas to rural medical officers too, who are working under the panchayati raj department.
A high court bench had then held that restriction of granting incentive for service in remote/ difficult areas only to in-service regular PCMS and PCMS (dental) doctors and not granting the same benefit to rural medical officers is illegal and violates the Medical Council of India (MCI) regulations.
Advocate HC Arora had earlier said: “The Punjab government had given the benefit of incentive marks only to the PCMS medical/dental doctors. The notification was silent regarding grant of such incentive marks to those doctors who were seeking admission to PG medical courses in private institutions.”
The university has invited online applications from candidates who are eligible with the reduced cutoff of percentile for NEETPG 2017 as per the directions of the Centre by May 29. RAJ BAHADUR, BFUHS V-C