Karnataka High Court stays directions given to 17 private medical colleges to surrender 212 seats to government quota

High Court of Karnataka stays order for private medical colleges to surrender MBBS seats, imposes fee deposit condition.

A Division Bench of the High Court of Karnataka on Monday, August 19, stayed the direction issued by a single judge to a few private medical colleges to surrender a certain number of seats in MBBS course from their management/NRI quota to the government quota for this academic year, as a penalty for admitting students with lower ranks to MBBS courses during 2018 in violation of the prescribed norms.

However, the Bench imposed a condition on the appellant private colleges that they should deposit with the Court the differential amount of the fees, charged for the government quota seats in private colleges and the management/NRI quota seats, within four weeks in respect of the number of seats that the colleges were required to surrender to the government quota seats as per the single judge’s directions.

The single judge, in an order passed on April 25, had issued directions to 17 colleges to surrender a total of 212 seats for this academic year apart from imposing exemplary fines for making admissions contrary to the law as alleged by the NMC and the RGUHS.

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice N.V. Anjaria and Justice K.V. Aravind passed the interim order on the appeals filed by Vydehi Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Bengaluru, and several other medical colleges.

However, this interim order is subject to the final order as it was contended by the colleges that if their appeals are finally dismissed by the Bench, then they were bound to surrender the seats for the next academic year.

It was argued on behalf of the colleges that single judge had passed the order based on the submissions made on behalf of the National Medical Commission and the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) in the absence of any written objection filed by the State government on the petitions filed by the colleges and the students questioning RGUHS’s decision of not allowing the students to appear for the examinations.

Earlier, government counsel told the court that the Department of Medical Education is awaiting an order on these appeals by withholding the seat matrix for the MBBS course for the admission to 2024-25 as these seats will have to be added to the government quota seat matrix as per the single judge’s directions. With today’s interim order, the government cannot add these seats to the seat matrix for this academic year.