The Delhi High Court on Monday directed the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to keep a seat available for an OBC student in its Master of Dental Surgery (MDS) course that is scheduled to begin from July this year till the disposal of a plea regarding the same.
The court’s direction came following a plea from an OBC student, Anusar Gupta, seeking a direction for reservation of the OBC category students in the MDS programme.
Gupta, a first rank holder in the OBC category in the post-graduate MDS course, was denied admission to the institute. He told the court in his plea that even though there are five seats in the MDS course, not a single one was reserved for OBC category students, which is illegal, as there is a provision of 27 per cent reservation of seats for OBC candidates in every institute.
"The petitioner has been denied admission in the OBC category, due to a wrong and illegal allocation of seats for OBC candidates, wherein not even a single seat has been reserved for OBC candidates (27 percent reservation) despite having a total of five seats," the petition read.
It was further submitted that AIIMS has wrongfully combined MD/MS seats with MDS seats, despite the two courses belonging to completely different categories. MD/MS degrees are for medical courses, while the MDS degree is for dental courses. AIIMS reserved the entire 27 per cent seats for OBC category candidates in the MD/MS courses and none in the MDS course.
"AIIMS has combined all the 121 seats (for MD/MS courses and MDS course) and allocated the 27 per cent reservation – 33 seats – to MD/MS courses and not even a single seat to MDS course, which is illegal and has caused grave injustice to the petitioner and his career," the plea said.
The Court has scheduled the next hearing in the matter for July 16.
