KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Wednesday upheld the state government’s decision to cancel 50 per cent of the admissions made by self-financing medical colleges, in post-graduate medical courses, during the academic year 2011.Justice V Chidambaresh passed the order while dismissing a petition filed by the Kerala Christian Professional College Managements Federation and others, challenging the government’s order demanding cancellation of the admissions made to the government quota seats and asking the Director of Medical Education to fill the seats.The petitioners had argued that the state arbitrarily sliced off the management’s 50 per cent quota, without any justification.However, Advocate-General K P Dandapani strongly opposed the submissions made by the petitioners. “The admission procedure lacked transparency. Regulations put in place by the Medical Council of India (MCI) had been violated and an entirely different selection criteria was adopted by the colleges,” the AG submitted. “Students from other states were given admission without following the norms. The managements violated the High Court order issued in 2010,” he said.“A set pattern has been adopted as the methodology for sharing of seats between self-financing colleges and the government, which has not been shown to be in any way arbitrary or inequitable,” the court held.The self-financing colleges are bound to follow a 50:50 seat-sharing ratio with the government, as per the directive of the Supreme Court, the court held.Coming down heavily on the petitioners, the court observed that a no-objection certificate, (NOC), to start the course was issued by the government only subject to the condition on seat-sharing and the petitioners cannot now turn around to contend otherwise.The court asked the state to make allotment in time, at least in the coming years, to avert such a situation. “The practice of filing petitions by associations, federations and managements of colleges, without the individual managements figuring as petitioner, has to be discouraged. Such practice, and the industry-parlance of ‘numerous employees’ is espoused by trade unions and associations, only to strengthen their bargaining power,” the court observed.The court also stated that the MCI norms not being made mandatory in all colleges is disturbing. The managements submitted that they offered 50 per cent seats to the government merit quota when they submitted an application for NOC for the medical PG courses. “The government had been intimated four times that May 31, 2011, was the deadline for completion of the admission procedure. But there was no response,” the managements submitted.
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