SC clears way for single medical entrance test

The MCI can now go ahead and seek the opinion of various state governments on the single-window entry to undergraduate medical courses.

The Health Ministry is opposing the MCI decision in view of reservations expressed by some states on the grounds of practical difficulties in implementing the new admission rules.

In a separate application in the SC,students supported the new MCI rules,saying that it would prevent “rampant seat wastage and seats being sold for crores”.

Speaking for the students,advocate Avdesh Chaudhary argued that his clients were “medical students belonging to the middle-class strata,who have very limited resources for pursuing medical studies in private colleges and are pursuing or will have to pursue in government medical colleges”.

The apex court itself had issued directions on August 3,2010 for the introduction of a ‘single window scheme’.

“The whole ideology has its own rationale as students,after being successful in the entrance exam,undergo counselling and are offered confirmed seats in medical colleges and there is no scope of having students being offered multiple seats in different colleges,” Dr Prashant Sharma,who represents the students in the SC,said.

The students said in their petition that even in the apex institute of the country — AIIMS — 54 seats in January 2010 session and 8 seats in the July 2010 session were wasted due to mid-session withdrawals when students got better branches in other institutes.