The Hyderabad high court issued a stay order to temporarily put a halt to the ongoing counseling process for admissions to Super Specialty Medical courses under Kaloji Narayan Rao Health University in Telangana and NTR Health University in Andhra Pradesh.

A division bench comprising justice V. Ramasubramanian and Justice T. Rajani granted an interim stay while dealing with a petition by Dr. B. Satish Kumar and 12 other aspirants for super speciality medical courses like Doctor of Medicine/Master of Chirurgie (MD/M.Ch) challenging a letter issued by the Center directing the health universities in both the Telugu states to conduct common counseling for all seats of NEET Super specialty 2017 at the national level.

Counsel for the petitioner Sarasani Satyam Reddy, contended the central government had no right to order the state governments to conduct common counseling for the courses at the national level. He said that by virtue of presidential order and the 1979 circular, eligibility for the courses in Telagnana and Andhra Pradesh was confined to the candidates having domicile in their respective states.  

Countering further against the central government’s order the counsel said that as per the six point formula of the constitution of India, as amended by 32nd Amendment that inserted Article 371-D, special provisions had been made in respect of Andhra Pradesh which provides equal opportunities in different parts of the state in the matter of public employment and education.  On August 11, the bench had sought the stand of the Center on the petition. When the matter came up for hearing on last Thursday counsel for the Center sought time to file the counter affidavit.

In view of this Sarasani Satyam Reddy submitted to the court that if the admission process is allowed as per the Central government’s directive it would cause irreparable loss to the petitioners.

Hearing the contention by the petitioner, the High Court bench of Hyderabad granted interim stay and directed the Central government to file the counter before 23rd August.

With this directive of the High Court, the admission process for the Super specialty medical courses in both AP and TS have been halted temporarily up to the next hearing of the court.