Govt refutes charges of raw deal to OBCs

The union government on Tuesday refuted the charge of giving raw deal to Other Backward Classes (OBC) category students in medical admission process and filed an exhaustive affidavit filed before the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court.

IIn its affidavit, the union health ministry claimed that in the first round of on-line counselling to fill up MBBS seats about 920 OBC students have taken undergraduate medical seats against total number of 3,388 unreserved category seats in the admission rounds conducted by Director General of Health Services.

Countering the charge of raw deal to OBC students in medical admission process, the Union health ministry claimed that constitutional reservation as approved by Supreme Court is being implemented in central institutions while issue of OBC reservation in all India quota is pending before the Apex Court.

The affidavit has been filed before the court which is hearing a PIL filed by Akhil Bharatiya OBC Mahasangh president Babanrao Taiwade and a student Radhika Raut alleging discrimination to OBC students in medical admissions and particularly alleging violation of existing constitutional reservation of OBCs in all India quota seats in medical colleges. The petitioners have sought one days’ time to counter the affidavit and the court will hear the matter on Thursday.

According to petitioners, OBC students are entitled to 27 percent reservation in 15 percent all India seats for MBBS admissions. In Maharashtra, there are 4,064 seats of all India quota of which at least 1,097 seats should have been reserved but only 69 seats have been allotted to OBC students which is barely 1.9 per cent of total seats. The petitioners have urged the court to scrap entire admission process and direct the authorities to provide constitutional reservation for the OBCs.

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