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Rajasthan HC: Seat Allocation for NRI Quota Is Dependent on the Discretion of the Institute in Question

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In a recent Judgement, Rajasthan HC declared that the number of seats to be allocated to NRI quota will be dependent on the Institute in question. The aforementioned decision was taken after a dispute arose when a medical institute decreased the number of seats allocated to NRI quota.

Facts

In this case, the medical college had allocated no seats in the NRI category this year and had published a notification to that effect. They deemed the seats that were supposed to have been in the NRI category as management seats.

Aggrieved by the notification, two NRI applicants had moved the Court urging for the Court to quash the same.

Arguments

The original petitioners’ counsel argued that a 15% quota for NRI applicants was mandatory as per the Supreme Court’s ruling in PA Inamdar v. the State of Maharashtra and that this could not be neglected.

A single Judge of the High Court afforded the two petitioners’ relief. To this end, the NEET Counselling Board was directed to allow the petitioners seats in the Radiology and Gynaecology departments of the College. It was further proposed that the Medical college had, in fact, advertised its NRI seat allocation in its prospectus.

Holding the notification illegal, the single Judge ruled that all students who had applied under the NRI category were to be counselled and that only once they were admitted could the rest be allocated to applicants in the management category.

Dissatisfied with the ruling, the Board, as well as two other applicants seeking a place in the college, filed an intra-court appeal, seeking a reversal of the single Judge order.

Apart from this, it was stated that the colleges had the sole discretion of allocating seats in the NRI category and that the candidates did not have a right to demand these seats to be given to them as a right. This was especially so given petitioners’ counsel that the fee structure was the same for NRI and management seats, it was argued.

The Board pointed out that the college had notified its ‘seat matrix’ (including the non-inclusion of an NRI-quota this year) and this had been accepted without objection from other colleges.

Court’s Observation 

The main purpose of allotting NRI seats was to provide extra finances to the institutions, so on to strengthen their level of education and to enlarge their educational activities and also to provide benefits to students coming from weaker & lower sections of the society.

Thus, it’s a mechanism for the sake of educational institutions only to raise funds for their smooth functioning.

Judgment

In the aforementioned judgment, two-Judge Bench of the Rajasthan High Court at Jaipur has quashed a single Judge order that had directed the mandatory intake of students in the Non-Resident Indian (NRI) quota at the Mahatma Gandhi Medical College, Sitapura. The bench decreed that the number of seats to be allocated to NRI quota will be dependent on the Institute in question.


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