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The Supreme Court on Friday noted that next week it will pass orders in the plea seeking introduction of a roaster system in All India Institutes of Medical Science for the admission of INI-CET candidates amongst colleges, which is currently being practiced by the Jawaharlal Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education & Research (JIPMER).

A bench of Justice L Nageswara Rao and Justice BR Gavai was hearing a plea filed through Advocate Charu Mathur by Students Association, AIIMS, Bhopal seeking direction to the AIIMS to have defined criteria for arriving at seat matrix for the institutional preference candidates in INI-CET i.e. Institute of National Importance Combined Entrance Test.

Advocate Arvind Datar appearing for the students informed the bench that the Court had earlier said that AIIMS can have any fair system, however, AIIMS told them to first get an order from the Supreme Court.

Whereas, counsel appearing for AIIMS submitted before the bench,  "We'll introduce a system based on the JIPMER system for the institutional preference."

Counsel further informed the bench that AIIMS Jodhpur and AIIMS Bhuvneshwar would like to bring their counsel. To which, the bench said that they'll pass orders over the issue next week and asked the counsel appearing for AIIMS to seek instructions from AIIMS Jodhpur and AIIMS Bhuvneshwar as well.

The plea has alleged that by not having a defined mechanism for seat allocation to the students coming from Institutional preference route is causing hardship as they are not able to secure seats in the desired/sort disciplines. It is submitted that even when the students are eligible they are being deprived of the institutional preference.

It has been stated that JIPMER Puducherry clearly provides roster system for allocation of seats to two sources of admissions i.e. institutional preference candidates and others along with relevant reservations. In furtherance to this, the plea has sought direction to provide for category-wise/discipline-wise seats to the candidates coming for institutional preference route.

The plea states,  "That at in terms of 5 judge constitutional bench judgement in Saurabh Chaudri v. Union of India, (2003) 11 SCC 146 the question of institutional preference is no more res integra. The same has been followed by three judge bench decision in Yatinkumar Jasubhai Patel v. State of Gujarat, (2019) 10 SCC 1 which held that institutional preference is to continue even after introduction of NEET. However, the mechanism for allotment of seats to the students coming from institutional preference route is not specified and hence the students are losing on their preferred discipline."

Cause Title: Students Association AIIMS Bhopal & Ors. Vs. All India Institute of Medical Sciences & Ors.