Daijiworld Media Network - Nagpur

Nagpur, May 3: The Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court, on Thursday, said that the 16 per cent reservation for Maratha community under the Socially and Economically Backward Classes (SEBC) category will not be applicable for post-graduate medical courses this year.

The Maharashtra government, on March 8, had issued a notice to the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) to incorporate the SEBC quota from the 2019 academic session in the PG medical courses. However, the court said the government notification would have no application to the present medical admission process that began on October 16, 2018.

The Bench of Justices Sunil Shukre and Pushpa Ganediwala said in their order that the March 8 notification (about the implementation of the new quota) shall not be applicable to the admission process, which had started earlier. The Bench had heard three petitions filed by students of Master of Dental Surgery (MDS), Medicine Doctor (MD) and Master of Surgery (MS) against the SEBC reservations on postgraduate medical seats in the state last week and had reserved the judgement for Thursday.

Advocate Ashwin Deshpande, who represented the petitioners, said, “Medical admissions commenced on October 16, 2018, for MDS and November 2, 2018, for MD-MS. The SEBC Act came into force on November 30, 2018 and Section 16(2) states that the act will not apply to the admission process already initiated. The court has therefore struck down the SEBC for this academic session, as the process had been initiated before the act came in. Fresh seat matrix will have to be prepared without SEBC quota as per this ruling.”

Hence, the provisions of the Maratha quota act would not be applicable to this year's admissions, he contended.