New Delhi, Apr 5 (IANS): In a big relief to students from outsid, the Supreme Court on Wednesday held invalid a criteria in the notification issued by Karnataka making mandatory a condition of domicile on candidate for admission to post-graduate medical and dental courses in the state.

A bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Justice U.U. Lalit said the condition in the information bulletin for PGET-2018 issued by the Karnataka government was invalid and directed it, the Directorate of Medical Education and the Karnataka Examinations Authority(KEA) to modify and amend the information bulletin for the examination and re-publish the calendar of events.

This year, the KEA introduced 'Karnataka origin' and made 10-year study in the state mandatory to qualify among the criteria to qualify for government seats in post-graduate medical and dental courses.

The bench in its judgement referred to its 2014 verdict which dealt with a similar condition in PGET-14, denying institutional preference to students who had passed MBBS/BDS from colleges or universities situated in Karnataka.

The court's order came on petition filed by Kriti Lakhina and 43 others doctor, who have done their MBBS/BDS courses from Karnataka and have cleared the NEET-PG 2018 examination with high merit position and are now aspiring for admission to post-graduate courses in the state, challenging the condition of domicile.

They said the domicile condition for admission was invalid and unconstitutional.

The Karnataka government had opposed the plea saying the state was within its right to formulate eligibility conditions to give preference to candidates who were most likely to serve the state.