State to make strong case, prevent admission delay

Barely three days after a representation of deemed and private medical and dental institutes in the state submitted a plea in the Supreme Court against the state-conducted common admission process, state officials are ready to fight the case.

Senior officials told HT that the state will put forth a tough case against the institutes to prevent any delay in admissions this time. “We are following a uniform rule implemented by the Centre to ensure hassle-free admissions. The deemed institutes’ attempt to seek right for separate admissions was shot down by the SC last year. We hope for similar ruling this year,” said Dr Pravin Shingare, director, Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER).

He added that the state government is working on filing an intervention to avoid dragging the case any further.

A notification dated March 10 makes it mandatory to have common counselling with no exemption for any institute — government-run, private or deemed. It states that the amendments have been introduced to the Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2000 and Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 1997.

Counselling will continue to be conducted by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) for All India Quota seats, both at undergraduate and postgraduate level. “The state has tried its best to explain the matter to the institutes but since they still insist on taking it to court, we are up for a fight,” he added.

Two weeks ago, a meeting was held between Girish Mahajan, minister of state medical education, officials from DMER and representatives of 35 private and deemed medical and dental institutes to find a solution.

Even as the state government was planning to release a common policy, the central government released another circular on April 6, making it clear that admissions will only be conducted as per the common admission process (CAP).

“Our demand is basic and something that we are entitled to. We’ve been granted autonomy for a purpose and it also grants us the right to conduct our own admissions process. We hope the Supreme Court will see our point,” said an official, on condition of anonymity, from a deemed medical institute in Pune.