Hyderabad: Quashing of the domicile-based quota in postgraduate medical admissions, the Supreme Court judgement on Wednesday created ripples among medical fraternity, garnering mixed views on the issues. The apex court held that the domicile-based reservations were against Article 14 of the Constitution and that the seats need to filled on the basis of merit. As a result of this, only state quota and All-India quota will be applicable for admissions to post graduate medical courses. The judgement will come into force with next year’s admissions and does not hamper the admissions already taken place through this quota. “There seems to be a bit of a confusion regarding state quota and domicile quota. Both are not the same. The state quota is not equal to domicile-based quota. The state quota is for those who completed MBBS in a particular state and get 50% benefit in seat allotment. While domicile quota is for those who are residents of a state and are alloted seat due to residence. Some states include candidates who graduated from other states but are domiciled in the concerned state. Some states attempted to reserve seats as domiciled quota within the state quota based on domicile of candidates, such as Haryana. The court now has called the domicile-based reservation within the state quota as unconstitutional but has not invalidated the entire state quota itself,” said Dr Srinivas Gundagani, Vice-Chairman, Telangana Medical Council. In Telangana, students who finished their school-level studies in Telangana but pursued their MBBS in other states, will be benefited with the judgment. However, the students who have always studied here will have to compete with other state students as well. They will also be able to apply to other states. The difference will be made in the timings of counselling. “Students who did their MBBS in other states, for example Andhra Pradesh, will be able to apply in Telangana and since AP counselling took place earlier than Telangana this year, about 100 such candidates moved to Telangana. This creates an imbalance and this difference will remain unless other states accommodate all their students in their own colleges,” said Dr Kiran Madala, President, Telangana Teaching Government Doctors Association. “If the professional postgraduate degree courses in medical field are confined to state wise reservation, the states with more PG seats will benefit more and small states will be deprived of professional doctors,” said Pushparaj, a NEET-PG aspirant. “The only benefit students receive is that they no longer need to apply for multiple counseling processes. Aside from this, the decision is likely to favor private medical colleges, allowing them to charge fees however they want. State governments will also have little motivation to regulate fees once this is implemented, as it will no longer significantly impact their own residents. Overall, this move may ultimately make obtaining a medical degree significantly more expensive,” said Sri Harsha, a final-year student at Gandhi Medical College. Whether the judgement will bring any changes for admissions next year, is not clear. The Health Department said that they will respond only after going through the judgement and consulting with National Medical Council and Medical Council Committee.
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