PIL filed on OBC policy in medical, dental colleges

Mumbai, July 14: A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Bombay High Court, challenging the reservation policy of the Maharashtra government in medical and dental college admissions through Maharashtra Common Entrance Test (MH-CET).

The petition, filed by city-based NGO People's Health Organisation (India) through its counsel Ajay Paniker, is likely to come up for hearing on Monday before Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Swatantra Kumar and Justice Ranjana Desai.

The petitioner, through the PIL, has sought a stay from the Court on the admissions to the medical and dental colleges, beginning July 17, and relief against ''highly political and discriminatory'' reservation policy of the state government to safeguard the larger interest of student community from the state.

Stating that Maharashtra was a unique case in the country, which had plethora of reservation categories under Constitutional and Specified groups, the petitioner alleged that the impugned reservation policy was so grave that merely 15 per cent seats remain for open general merit students in government-run medical, dental and other professional colleges.

According to the petitioner, apart from caste-based reservations, to the extent of 50 per cent for SC, ST, VJ (Vimukta Jaati), Nomadic Tribe (NT) and OBC, there are also reservations for a host of other categories which included Central government nominees as well. Above all, 15 per cent seats are reserved for national quota in addition to state and regional quota, the petitoner stated.

Moreover, there is an un-equitable division of the state into three regions -- Vidarbha (11 districts), Marathwada (eight districts) and rest of Maharashtra (comprising 16 districts) -- for the purpose of medical education.

The medical seats from the state/municipal colleges in Mumbai and Thane are thrown open to everybody and hardly a fraction come to Mumbaikars the petition states.

According to the petitioner, the seat-distribution pattern over the last decade shows that several specified categories are added to the reservation-list and the percentage of seats are increased in the existing categories, often 'surreptitiously by the politicians and officialdom', leaving behind only 24 per cent seats for Open Merit on paper.

The PIL adds states that Maharashtra has been consistently contributing 310 of 2,060 medical and 36 of 240 dental seats, but its students do not get even a fraction of those seats.

UNI