2 days ago
Chandigarh PG medical seats to stay with all-India pool, says High Court
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has upheld the Chandigarh administration's decision to reallocate vacant Union Territory (UT) quota seats in postgraduate (PG) medical courses to the All India Quota (AIQ), rejecting a challenge from candidates who argued the move violated a Supreme Court judgment.
A division bench of Justice Mahabir Singh Sindhu and Justice H.S. Grewal dismissed the petition filed by Avijit Chander and others, who had opposed a June 3 notification that diverted unfilled UT Pool seats at Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Chandigarh, to the AIQ pool. The petitioners had argued these seats should have gone to the Institutional Preference (IP) category under the state quota for local candidates.
Their counsel, senior advocate Gurminder Singh, said, 'While taking a complete U-turn… without any authority of law and also in complete violation of Shrey Goel's judgment, respondent No. 2 has issued the impugned public notice… wherein vacant U.T. Pool seats have been diverted to A.I.Q. against [the] maximum limit of 50%.'
But the court found no merit in the claim, ruling that the matter of residence-based reservation in PG medical courses had already been settled by the Supreme Court. 'This Court is not persuaded with the arguments raised by learned senior counsel… the legal issue has already been adjudicated,' said Justice Sindhu.
The case has its roots in the Supreme Court's January 29 verdict in Dr. Tanvi Behl v. Shrey Goel & Others, which struck down the practice of reserving PG medical seats on the basis of residence in UT Chandigarh. The apex court had ruled that such a reservation was 'not permissible', but allowed students already admitted or graduated to remain unaffected.
Following this, the Chandigarh administration initially said in April that vacant UT Pool seats would be moved to the IP category. However, in a fresh notice on June 3, it reassigned them to the AIQ instead, sparking the present legal challenge.
The petitioners argued that the administration's about-turn violated both the letter and spirit of the Supreme Court ruling and exceeded the 50% limit allowed for AIQ seats. But the high court noted that the seat matrix – 75 for AIQ and 76 for State Quota (plus four EWS) – remained within permissible limits, and that the reallocation aligned with the Supreme Court's broader emphasis on merit-based admissions.
'Consequently, there is no option, except to dismiss the petition,' the bench concluded in its order, delivered on June 10.
