SC nod sought for medical seat quota

New Delhi: With the new academic session round the corner the Centre has started courting the quota issue once again.

The Centre on Tuesday sought the Supreme Court's permission to provide a 22.5 per cent quota to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in postgraduate medical courses for the academic session 2007-08.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal agreed to give an urgent hearing to the application after the Centre said the All India Postgraduate Entrance Examination 2007, conducted by AIIMS, was scheduled to be held on January 14 and the result was likely to be declared in mid-February.

The Supreme Court fixed Friday for hearing the Centre's application.

The Centre in May last year expressed its difficulty in granting quotas to SC/ST candidates in the last academic session in the wake of the apex court's direction of February 2005 that 50 per cent of the all-India quota should be exclusive of any reservation.

The admission process to PG courses for the last academic session was marred by confusion as the apex court in its interim order asked that 10 per cent reservation be provided to SCs and STs, which was later vacated after the Centre gave an undertaking that it would address the issue.

The application said three options given by Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramanian were examined by the Health Ministry before arriving at the current decision.