Mumbai: A day after medical aspirants flagged some apparent anomalies in seat distribution at private medical and dental colleges, the state Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell made a correction in the seat matrix even as it denied any other flaw in the document.
The Cell accepted that the newly introduced 10% Socially and Educationally Backward Class (SEBC) quota was wrongfully applied to minority-run medical and dental colleges and has since issued a revised seat matrix indicating the rectification. The authority, however, rejected the complaint about an erroneous calculation of SEBC quota seats at other private institutes leaving fewer seats for general category students.
On Thursday, a day before the choice-filling process for the first round of state-level MBBS admissions came to an end, parents of some of the candidates had written to the state government, pointing at what they saw as a wrongful implementation of SEBC reservation. They objected to some of the seats at the state’s only minority medical college and the sole minority dental college, both run by Muslim management, being reserved for Marathas, even though these institutes are exempted from reservation norms.
They claimed that the number of seats reserved for Marathas at private institutes was calculated by considering the overall student intake, including 15% of seats for the institute quota. Since these reserved seats are drawn only from the remaining 85% of regular seats, it effectively resulted in SEBC candidates getting more seats than the prescribed 10% quota. According to parents, this resulted in relatively fewer seats for underserved students than the previous year.
“The state’s regulations for medical admissions stipulate that the quota seats be calculated on the basis of total seats, which includes institute quota seats. We have been following the same method for constitutional reservations. Why should it be any different for SEBC,” said an official.
This methodology is in contrast with the seat distribution formula used for other professional courses. For example, the number reserved seat figures for SEBC, as well as for constitutional reservation categories such as Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Other Backward Class (OBC), engineering courses are calculated merely on the basis of 65% seats left after excluding the 15% All India and 20% institute quota seats.
The officials from CET Cell explained that the difference in the two approaches owes to the fact that while institute quota seats for in professional courses are filled at college level, those in health science programmes are allotted through the Centralised Admission Process (CAP) conducted by the state. “The state’s regulations for medical admissions stipulate that the quota seats be calculated on the basis of total seats, which includes institute quota seats. We have been following the same method for constitutional reservations. Why should it be any different for SEBC,” said an official.
However, a medical education counsellor, suggests that the state’s approach is discriminatory. “While the combined reservation for SC, ST, OBC and other social groups in private health science institutes has been capped at 25%, half of around 50% reservation elsewhere, the entirety of 10% SEBC quota is applicable. This is an undue favour for Maratha candidates,” said the counsellor.
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A similar controversy had erupted when the state had first implemented reservation for Marathas in the form of 16% SEBC quota in 2018. The ensuing seat distribution in medical and dental colleges was challenged in the Bombay High Court (HC) by some candidates. However, the Supreme Court (SC) had in 2021 struck down the quota for breaching the 50% ceiling.
