AIIMS Students Association Moves Supreme Court Seeking JIPMER Model Roster For Institutional Preference In PG Admissions

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice in the Writ Petition filed by AIIMS Students Association challenging the existing system for institutional preference for post-graduate admissions in AIIMS.

A Bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and B.R.Gavai heard Senior Advocate Arvind Datar appearing for the petitioners and directed that the matter be heard on 10.01.2022 along with a similar petition challenging the system of institutional preference. 

Under the existing system, based on the Supreme Court judgments in AIIMS Students Union v AIIMS ((2002) 1 SCC 428) and Saurabh Chaudri and Ors v Union of India, (2003) 11 SCC 146, MBBS Students from AIIMS are eligible for preference in 50% of the post-graduate seats. This is subject to their meeting certain criteria.

The petitioners argued that by the time the seats are allocated through institutional preference, seats in all the popular courses are filled up as a result of which students from AIIMS do not opt for admissions through institutional preference. The petition submits that according to RTI response between 2017-2021, only 50 AIIMS students had availed of institutional preference. The petitioners have also prayed that the roster system followed by JIPMER be applied to AIIMS post-graduate admissions too. In the roster system, 19 of the first 100 seats are assigned for admission through institutional reservation. This, according to the petitioners, ensures that JIPMER students are able to take admission in popular clinical courses.

Petitioners further argued that even though the existing system is constitutionally valid since it is based on the Court's judgment in AIIMS Students Union (2001), much has changed since then -the number of AIIMS and the number of post-graduate seats has increased; a number of new categories of reservation – OBC,EWS, PWD etc. have been introduced since the Judgment was delivered.

In AIIMS Student Union Case (2001) the Court struck down the then system of institutional reservation at AIIMS. However, the Court laid down that AIIMS students would be eligible for preference against 25% of the total seats subject to them fulfilling certain conditions. Further, in Saurabh Chaudri and Ors v Union of India, (2003) the Court modified the Judgment in AIIMS Students Union to hold that AIIMS Students would be entitled to preference against 50% seats.

Senior Advocate Arvind Datar appearing for the petitioners argued that the Supreme Court's judgments in Saurabh Chaudri case "become meaningless". He further submitted that AIIMS should follow the roster system adopted by JIPMER since both AIIMS and JIPMER are Institutes of National Importance.

He further submitted that "The AIIMS Academic Committee said the model followed by the JIPMER is the correct method. They referred it for Legal Opinion which says unless the Supreme Court gives a direction we cannot implement the JIPMER policy here." 

Justice Rao expressed the court's reservation in issuing a mandamus in the matters even if there was merit in the Counsel's submissions. "We cannot order the government to do this or that in matters of policy," he stated. 

The Bench directed that the matter be listed on 10.01.2022 along with a similar matter in Writ Petition 1329/2021 which challenges the institutional preference system.

The petition was drafted by Advocate Pranjal Kishore and filed by Advocate on Record Aditya Jain.

Case name: AIIMS Student Association v Union of India WP(c) No.1238/2021

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