NEET PG Counselling: Telangana’s domicile rules leave hundreds with ‘nowhere to go’; over 70 move court

NEW DELHI: At least 74 pleas have been filed in the Telangana High Court (HC) against the state's new local residency rule for post-graduation (PG) medical courses.

A bench of the HC Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J Sreenivas Rao is hearing these petitions, which have challenged a recent amendment to Telangana’s Postgraduate Medical Courses Rules 2021.

A government order notified on October 28 - two days before the start of Telangana’s NEET PG 2024 counselling session – requires the PG medical aspirants to have studied at least four consecutive schooling years in the state to be eligible for the state quota seats, even if they completed their MBBS in a Telangana medical college.

In their pleas, the petitioners have argued that the change in 2021 rules is in conflict with a Supreme Court order in a case from 1984, which held residence-based reservations, other than institutional preference in professional postgraduate courses, to be impermissible.

Also read Rajasthan NEET UG counselling board cancels MBBS admissions of 100 students at PMCH

The petitioners, all of whom are MBBS graduates from Telangana institutions, contended that the amendments violate Constitutional provisions against discrimination and equality before law as they came after the National Board of Examination in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) had issued notification for admission in PG courses.

Telangana domicile rules for NEET counselling

Telangana’s domicile rules for the local quota seats are similar to the one introduced for the undergraduate (UG) medical programmes earlier this year. That government order, amending the Telangana Medical and Dental Colleges Admission (Admission into MBBS & BDS Courses) Rules 2017, was opposed by student groups such as the Students' Federation of India (SFI) and the opposition, Bharat Rashtra Samithi, claiming that it would even affect candidates from Telangana.

In August, the HC had scrapped these domicile criteria for the students who are permanent residents of the state, even though the state agreed to a one-time waiver to 135 candidates who had approached the court.

Also read NEET PG Counselling 2024: NMC warns it will cut seats if medical colleges violate PGMER regulations

The very next month, in September, the Supreme Court stayed the HC's verdict and asked the state government to consider postponing the implementation of the new domicile rule to next year. The apex court also recognised the state's "legitimate interest" in demanding domicile certificates for 85% state quota seats in medical institutes.

NEET PG Counselling: Non-local everywhere

Students affected studied in one of three categories of MBBS seats in Telangana medical colleges – the all-India quota, the management seats and the Andhra Pradesh quota which was discontinued in 2021. Each one had 15% of seats.

The PG aspirants who are unable to satisfy the new admission norms, believe that extending the same rule for MD/MS programmes would effectively render them non-local everywhere in the country. This is because, they point out, most of the states consider MBBS graduates from their respective institutes as local candidates for the purpose of PG admissions.

While the four-year study criterion is applicable to all 'non-local' graduates, it particularly affects those hailing from the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, which, until 2014, included the current Telangana region and, until 2024, shared Hyderabad as the capital with the newly-formed state.

"All the adjacent states including, but not limited to the states of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharastra, Orissa and North Eastern states consider students who have pursued MBBS in their state, irrespective of their schooling years, as local. Now when these states declare "doing MBBS" as the main criteria to define locality, students who have migrated to the state of Telangana automatically attain the status of non-local in their individual states, leaving us with nowhere to go and claim our locality for PG seats, all over the country," reads a letter submitted by the affected students to the registrar of KNR University of Health Sciences, which conducts the counselling for PG medical programmes.

Dr Yaganti Siva Rama Krishna, one of the petitioners who hails from Andhra Pradesh, estimates that around 200-300 students from the current batch of aspirants are affected by the state's last-minute change in rules, while over 500 more candidates will likely face similar situation in the each of the subsequent years. "Those who got good ranks will get through All India Quota (AIQ) seats, but those with lower ranks need the state counselling to get into their desired branches," he said.

The matter will now be heard by HC on Monday.