New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that the PG Medical seats in Christian Medical College (CMC) Vellore for the academic session 2022-2023 are to be filled from the minority merit list prepared by the Tamil Nadu Government. 

A bench of Justices including L Nagewara Rao and B R Gavai, found force in the vehement submissions of additional advocate general Amit Anand Tiwari, appearing for the state government said that the NEET regulations clearly state that admissions to the medical courses, both MBBS and the PG, have to be done from the NEET merit list. 

During the hearing process, senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for the minority institution, argued against the Tamil Nadu communication seeking seat sharing at 50:50 ratio from two lists prepared by the state government and the institution respectively for the PG Course admissions. 

Along with arguing that the seat-sharing methodology should be disallowed, the institution also sought approval for its own methodology of selecting students. According to the method, the students from all the 23 zonal regions are to be admitted from lists sent by several “protestant churches-Christian organisations.”

Divan argued even after NEET came into force, CMC has been providing admissions to those who have qualified in a transparent method. He also stated that the top one and two students are selected from each list from such regional zones and they are selected after counselling hence, the method of selection is merit-based. 

The plea was opposed by Tiwari on the ground that the NEET Regulations provided that admissions have to be conducted as per the merit list prepared by the government authorities. 

Referring to the SC judgement, the counsel for Tamil Nadu said that the states are required to maintain a merit list of minority students.

Moreover, he demonstrated from the list of the admitted students that several of them were given the admissions in the institution after ignoring and bypassing the students who were higher in the minority merit list prepared by the state.

CMC Vellore, in its plea, has also sought an interim relief that it be allowed to continue with the old method of selection as was being done for the last three years for the PG admissions in the current year. 

The apex court, however, has refused to grant the relief and directed that the entire 100 percent PG seats for the academic session 2022-2023 are to be filled through the minority merit list prepared by Tamil Nadu.

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