The Madras High Court (HC) has held that private linguistic minority medical colleges are bound by the provision of the Post-Graduate Medical Education Reservations (PGMER) 2023 issued by the National Medical Commission (NMC) and the agreements made with the government to reserve PG medical seats for the government quota as per the applicable laws of the state or union territory.
The court dismissed a petition filed by Venkateshwara Medical College and Research Centre in Puducherry which sought the court to quash the July 22, 2024 notification issued by the director-cum-nodal officer (Medical Education), Puducherry government providing for surrendering 50% PG seats for government quota; and prayed for treating all its PG seats as All India Management Quota to be filled by it, stated a report by The New Indian Express.
"Article 30 of the Constitution of India guarantees fundamental right for the minorities to establish and administer educational institutions. Thus, Article 30 of the Constitution does confer right alone but does not confer any special privilege upon the minorities. Hence, the prayer of the petitioner to treat all PG seats as All India Management Quota, is impermissible since the same will amount to special privilege," said Justice Vivek Kumar Singh, in an order passed on Friday.
Rejecting to the contention of the petitioner that 'memorandum of agreement' entered with the government in 2015 applies only to the under-graduate (UG) seats and not for PG seats, Justice Singh reasoned that reservation of PG seats is also one of the subject matters of terms of the agreement and so the petitioner is bound by the agreement and also to share the PG seats as well to the government quota.
The petitioner institute submitted that PGMER, 2023 does not contain any clauses similar to 9 (7) of the repealed PGMER, 2000 for provision of government quota seats and it need not provide such quota since being a minority institution.
Further, it contended that even clause 4.8 of the PGMER, 2023 stipulates that the reservation of seats in medical colleges for respective categories shall be made as per the applicable laws and clause 14 of Pondicherry Private Professional Educational Institutions (Provision of Reservation, Admission of Students and Fixation of Fees) Regulations, 2006 expressly excludes minority institutions.
However, Subharanjani Anand, counsel for NMC pointed out that regulation for Chapter IV of PGMER, 2023 provides for reservation of seats in the medical colleges as per applicable laws of the state and union territories, irrespective of the categories.
Additional government pleader for Puducherry government B Ramasamy pointed out that clause 4.8 of the PGMER, 2023 empowers the state government to implement their reservation policy in accordance with the prevailing law. He also stated that the petitioner college already agreed to share 50% of the seats at the time of commencement of the institute as per an agreement entered into in compliance of the 'essentiality certificate', according to The New Indian Express report.
