The Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court has come down heavily on the Maharashtra government for what it called a "pick and choose" method in implementing a fee reimbursement scheme for medical students.
The Division Bench of Justice Kishore C. Sant and Justice Ajit B. Kadethankar allowed two connected writ petitions, ruling that four medical students who missed out on government or aided college seats in 2019-20 were wrongly denied reimbursement benefits, even though students with lower merit than them had received the same benefit.
Background of the Case
The dispute goes back to the 2019-20 admission year, when application of EWS and SEBC reservation under state law pushed several general category students out of government and aided medical colleges, forcing them into costlier private institutions. To soften this blow, the state issued a Government Resolution on 20 September 2019, promising reimbursement of the extra fees paid by such students.
Petitioner Prajwal Kasbekar and three others - Sejal Bhale, Aishwarya Dhadwal and Sharvari Deshmukh - claimed they qualified for this benefit but were left out of the list, even though their NEET AIR ranks were higher than many of the 106 students who did get the reimbursement.
Court's Observations
The bench noted that the state's defence kept shifting between affidavits, first claiming the petitioners weren't meritorious enough, then blaming a 70:30 regional quota. The court found this shifting stand troubling and rejected an unsigned, unstamped chart produced by officials as unreliable.
The judgment stated:
"We are constrained to mark our serious displeasure against respondent State Authorities' 'pick and choose' method while implementing a beneficial 'one time scheme'. In fact while examining the matters in hand, we are shocked to see serious incongruity in admitting students in Government and Aided medical colleges."
The court also recorded its frustration over repeated non-appearance of senior officials during hearings, which at one point led to initiation of suo motu contempt proceedings against certain officers - later dropped after they tendered an unconditional apology, though a cost of Rs 10,000 each was imposed on them.
Court's Decision
The High Court declared the petitioners entitled to reimbursement under the 2019 resolution, directing the Director of Medical Education and Research to process payments within eight weeks along with 6% interest, rising to 9% in case of delay.
The respondents were also directed to pay Rs 50,000 as costs to each petitioner, and a copy of the judgment was ordered to be sent to the Principal Secretary of the Medical Education Department for an inquiry into the admission process.
