After the Gujarat HC quashed the government’s ordinance to dismiss the NRI quote in medical colleges, the entrance test of MBBS for NRIs has been challenged by a 19-year-old candidate at the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

The bench of Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justice Harinder Singh Sidhu has sent notices to Punjab Government as well as Baba Farid University of Health Sciences after taking up the petition filed by Navjot Kaur through counsel Ashok Sharma Nabhewala.

Through the petition, the court was told that the government did not opt for NEET-2016 and conducted its own test PMET-2016 in June.

The petition further reads that while petitioner’s father obtained NRI certificate from the Embassy of India, the Punjab Government issued fresh notification for admissions.

According to the clause 3 of the notification the NRI seats in government medical colleges would be filled on the basis of merit of a separate entrance test conducted by respondent varsity. Following the rule, on August 4, the respondent varsity uploaded a public notice for holding the NRI test, reports said.

Among the 37 students that appeared in the test only seven NRI students managed to qualify for 41 MBBS and 7 BDS seats, in the entrance examination.

Petitioner’s counsel Nabhewala has said that among other things, one of the main law points arising in the writ petition was whether a clause in the impugned notification was liable to be quashed so far as it prescribed an entrance test for NRI seats in government colleges.

By Prajakt K.