The Amended Rules 2020 which was implemented by the State of Maharashtra on 7 September 2020 did away with the regional reservations in Maharashtra with regard to the admissions for the undergraduate courses in Medical Studies.
The Aurangabad Bench of Bombay High Court has observed that the decision of scrapping the Regional Reservation is valid, as the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) is based on the concept of one nation, one examination. Therefore, the court reasoned that to provide admissions to the students only on the basis of their respective merit, the Regional Reservations were acting as a contradiction. Therefore, the court upholds the state’s decision as valid.
The petition was filed by eight students, going to pursue medical studies informed the bench of the court comprised of Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice Shrikant Kulkarni, that the decision of the government to set aside the regional reservation was not valid and also the petition said that this decision was implemented after 10 days, the examination had started, so it should be not applied retrospectively. It should not affect the admission procedure for the year 2020-21.
The bench replies,
“The contention of the petitioners that Amendment Rules-2020 are made operative retrospectively do not appear to be proper. Before the conduct of the NEET examination, the rules are amended. Moreover, amended rules do not affect the prospects of the students in whatsoever manner.”
The bench also added,
“The basis of admission to the medical course is the merit alone achieved by the students in NEET examination. No student can claim the right to possess regional reservation. The marks obtained in the HSC examination carry no weightage for medical admission. In light of the above, the arguments of the petitioners that the amendment Rules-2020 applied retrospectively would not hold water.”
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