The Supreme Court, witnessing a spate of litigations on admissions to medical colleges across the country, on Wednesday felt there was "total chaos" this year and decided to formulate stringent guidelines in this regard.
A bench comprising Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice D M Dharmadhikari said, "Total chaos which took place this year should not be repeated. We will put stringent conditions -- monetary or otherwise -- for the institutions to stick to the time-schedule for admissions and commencement of academics."
This observation came during the hearing of a bunch of petitions filed by candidates wanting to take admission into medical colleges.
They alleged that delay in the completion of counselling for seats in government medical colleges by the states had created an anomalous situation.
Referring to the schedules stipulated in Establishment of Medical Colleges Regulation, 1999 and Medical Education (Amendment) Regulation, 2004, the bench said, "Until and unless all these schedules are adhered to, this chaos will continue."
The court clarified that its August 9 order directing the states to complete first round of counselling by August 20 was in no way an extension of the schedule.
Appearing for the petitioners, senior advocate Mukul Rohtagi alleged that though many government medical colleges in the states had increased their seats, the 15 per cent all-India Quota had not registered a corresponding increase resulting in appropriation of the additional seats totally by the states.
The Medical Council of India, through Harish Salve and Maninder Singh, said schedules had to be adhered to and the bench adjourned the matter for August 31.