Bombay High Court: The Division Bench of S.V. Gangapurwala and S.G. Dige, JJ., addressed a matter wherein an aspirant of M.B.B.S Course approached the Court praying that the petitioner be considered in State Quota from NRI Quota.
The present petition was filed seeking directions against the respondents to correct her NRI quota and to consider her from the State quota for Maharashtra for NEET-UG-2021.
The petitioner also challenged the communication classifying her in NRI Quota.
Analysis, Law and Decision
High Court expressed that as per Rule 4.8 of NEET-UG-21 Regulation’s children of employees of Government of India or it’s undertaking.
The said rule prescribed criteria for the employees of the Government of India or its undertaking. As per this rule, at the time of the last date of documents verification, said Government servant or employee must be serving in the State of Maharashtra.
In the present matter, the petitioner was the domicile of Maharashtra, her father’s job was out of Maharashtra and the SSC and HSC examinations of the petitioner were completed from Bhopal, hence the petitioner’s case did not fall under the above-stated rule.
Maharashtra Unaided Private Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Administrator to the Full-Time Professional Undergraduate Medical and Dental Course) Rules, 2016 prescribed the eligibility criteria for admission to the undergraduate medical courses affiliated to the Maharashtra Universities of Health Sciences.
The Rule applicable since 2018 and followed consistently was that:
(i) the student should pass 10th and 12th standards from an institution situated within the State of Maharashtra and
(ii) must be domicile of State of Maharashtra
Exception in the above-stated Rule was that if a person has cleared 10th standard prior to the year 2017 from an institution outside the State of Maharashtra, he would still be eligible, provided he has passed 12th standard examination from an institution situated within the State of Maharashtra and he is also the domicile of Maharashtra.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Yellamalli Venkatapriyanka v. State of Maharashtra,2018 SCC OnLine Bom 10293, considered the requirement for claiming the benefit of State Quota.
This Court opined that as per the Admission Rules, criteria State Quota is given to the children of an employee of Government of India or its undertaking who are serving in State of Maharashtra and the said Rules have been modified time to time as per the requirements.
The petitioner had not challenged the regulations of NEET-UG-2021 and the Rules which were brought into effect for the admission process.
Therefore, the above petition was dismissed. [Rachna Sanjay Kuwar v. State of Maharashtra, 2022 SCC OnLine Bom 530, decided on 11-3-2022]
Advocates before the Court:
Mr Shailesh P. Brahme, Advocate for Petitioner.
Mr S. B. Yawalkar, Addl. G.P. for Respondent No.1 Mr.S.G. Karlekar, advocate for respondent no.2.
