Consortium of Private Medical and Dental Colleges in Karnataka (COMED-K) agreed to fill up 50 per cent of the seats in the unaided non-minority professional colleges through the Common Entrance Test (CET) conducted by the government of Karnataka.

Similarly, three unaided minority professional educational institutions have agreed to fill up 30 per cent of the seats through the CET. However this would be an interim arrangement for this academic year only.

The COMED-K has placed this new seat sharing formula before the division bench comprising Justice R V Raveendran and Justice K L Manjunath of the Karnataka High Court, which is hearing a petition filed by it and three minority group educational institutions namely the NITTE Educational Trust, Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheswara Educational Trust and the Al-Ameen Education Trust. As many as 12 colleges have filed petitions in the High Court under the banner of COMED-K questioning the government's stand on admission to medical and dental colleges.

The High Court would however pronounce the interim arrangement next week after considering the formula and the stand of the State government.

As per the new formula, the remaining 50 per cent seats in the non-minority group of educational institutions would be filled up by the management of these institutions on the basis of the merit to be determined by them.

Further, of the 50 per cent of the seats given to the government by the non-minority institutions, 25 per cent would be treated as payment seats and the candidates selected through CET under this quota would have to pay the full fee as prescribed by the respective institutions. The remaining 25 percent would be concession seats preferably given to candidates of reserved category. The private medical and dental colleges would collect only 20 per cent of the total fee from the candidates under this concession category.

The petitioner colleges also agreed to fix a fee of Rs. 2 lakh for medical and Rs. 1.2 lakh for dental seats.

Arguing for the COMED-K senior counsel, Kapil Sibel said that the colleges have come out with this formula considering that the State government has already conducted the CET this year.

Earlier, appearing for the minority institutions, senior counsel Rajiv Dhawan and AK Ganguly have argued that in the light of Apex Court's judgement in TMA Pai Foundation case, the private institutions have absolute right to admit and fix the fees and the State has no business to interfere in the process.

Arguing on behalf of the government of Karnataka, Advocate General AN Jayaram, said that the judgement in TMA Pai Foundation case it is not clear and the State has proceeded on the basis of its understanding of the judgement. He also defended the government's decision.

However, when the arguments resumed in the second session of the day, both the advocate general and the senior counsel representing the educational institutions sought time to sort out the issue mutually and held a brief discussion outside the courtroom.

When both the parties returned to the court room, the senior counsel representing the petitioner institutions have out forward the above formula for seat sharing and the advocate general did not oppose the scheme.

At that time the bench asked the petitioners counsel to suggest a fee structure too. After lengthy arguments on fixing the 'lower fee' structure, senior counsels Sibal, Ganguly and Dhawan came out with a fee structure. However, they have also agreed to accept the fee structure to be recommended by the High Court in its interim order to be pronounced next week.

The main contention of the petitioner is that the State has framed the Karnataka Selection of Candidates for Admission to Medical, Dental, Indian System of Medicine and Homeopathy Rules 2003 and conducted CET in violation of the Supreme Court's order, which would be heard by the High Court at a later stage.