Apex court alone can introduce OBC reservation in all-India quota: Medical Council of India

The written submission made on behalf of MCI’s Board of Governors stated that AIQ was conceived by the SC with a direction that a certain percentage of seats must be filled purely on merit without applying reservation in any form. The scheme was modified from time to time and the SC held that reservation would be provided AIQ for SC/ST alone.

“Therefore, from the beginning, the counselling for AIQ is done only on the orders passed by the SC. This position has continued even after the introduction of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) in 2010 and hence any changes to the current scheme can be made only by the Supreme Court,” the submission said.

It further pointed out that since provisions of Regulation 5 of the Graduate Medical Education and Regulation 9 of the Postgraduate Regulations deal only with the seats to be filled in State Quota, the regulations do not have any bearing on the AIQ. “Since all the AIQ seats are filled up in compliance with the directions of SC and reservation for any category, including OBC, in the AIQ can be implemented only with the SC permitting the modification,” the submission added. It also held that the regulation for bifurcation between government quota and reservation of seats in diploma courses for in-service candidates reveal that these provisions cannot be applied to AIQ and are restricted in their operation only to the State Quota seats.