Entrance test for NRIs challenged

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 31

The entrance test for NRIs for admission to MBBS course has come under the judicial scanner. Taking up a petition filed by a 19-year-old candidate, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has put on notice the Punjab Government and Baba Farid University of Health Sciences.

The notice by the bench of Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justice Harinder Singh Sidhu came on the petition filed by Navjot Kaur through counsel Ashok Sharma Nabhewala. The court was told that the government did not opt for NEET-2016 and conducted its own test PMET-2016 in June.

The petitioner’s father obtained NRI certificate from the Embassy of India. Meanwhile, the Punjab Government issued fresh notification for admissions.

The clause 3 of the notification made it clear that NRI seats in government medical colleges would be filled on the basis of merit of a separate entrance test conducted by the respondent varsity. On August 4, the respondent varsity uploaded a public notice for holding of the NRI test.

In the entrance test, 37 students appeared, but just seven NRI candidates qualified for 41 MBBS and seven BDS seats.

Nabhewala added among other things one of the main law points arising in the writ petition was whether a clause in the impugned notification was liable to be quashed so far as it prescribed an entrance test for NRI seats in government colleges.