Karnataka NEET PG Counselling : High court reversed Karnataka states government decision to reduce in service doctors seats

The government tried to provide more seats than candidates, but according to the judgement by Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice S Vishwajith Shetty, they were “not forthcoming from the minutes of the meeting dated 09-06-2022.” What’s worse, the notification outdating 09-10-2022 was quashed by Justice Alok Aradhe. The seat matrix date 06-10-2022 issued by the Director of Medical Education was also quashed.

The HC has said that, while evaluating certain criteria, the State Government has discretion to define the quota again. While delivering its judgement, the HC also mentioned how relevant a criterion for defining the quota is – it needs to be the number of seats and number of in-service candidates who have qualified for counselling. For instance, if there were five seats and fifteen in-service candidates, one in-service candidate may select one seat. This has been reduced this year; last year there was a 1:5 ratio for choice between seats (1:5 means you have one of five available), but this year it’s virtually 1:1 with no rationale for reducing the quota for in-service candidates. The decision appears to have been taken casually and without any cogent reasons.