SC to hear Telangana’s plea on MBBS, BDS ‘local’ admissions issue

Hyderabad: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the special leave petitions (SLPs) on the issue of ‘local’ MBBS, BDS admissions criteria filed by the Telangana government on September 20.

This comes amid growing tensions among students over securing admissions to MBBS and other medical courses in the state, which have been stalled due to a lack of clarity on the local candidate norm.

The Telangana government has moved the Supreme Court challenging the decision of the Telangana High Court, which held that a permanent resident of the state was not required to study in Telangana for 4 continuous years to get admission in MBBS or BDS courses under the domicile quota seats.

The definition of a local candidate is very important as 85% of the available seats will be allocated to them, while the remaining 15% will be reserved for the All India quota, in which non-local candidates will compete.

The Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, agreed to list the matter after senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for the state, made a mentioning of it on September 12.