The Madras High Court on June 21 issued notice to the Medical Council of India and Jawaharlal Institute of Post-Graduate Medical Education and Research on a plea seeking a direction to the institute not to allot seats reserved for 'Puducherry Scheduled Community' (P-SC) to non-Puducherry SC students.

Admitting the plea moved by A Sarandev, who was denied a seat in the institute, Justice K Kalayanasundaram directed the MCI and JIPMER to file their responses by June 26. According to the petitioner, JIPMER has reserved six seats in MBBS course under P-SC category and such seats are available only to persons belonging to scheduled caste students-Puducherry. Recently, the institute released its merit list for P-SC category in which the petitioner was ranked 10th.

A scrutiny of the list revealed that students ranked 1,2,4,6,7 and 8 do not fall under P-SC category since their origin was not Puducherry, counsel for the petitioner Srinivasan said. Citing two judgments of the Supreme Court, the petitioner said the apex court had unanimously arrived at a view that migrants are not entitled to the benefits of reservation in the migrated state or union territory.

He then wanted the court to direct the institute to make the admissions to MBBS courses only in strict conformity with the apex court judgments. As an interim relief, the petitioner appealed to the court to direct JIPMER to reserve one seat under the P-SC category pending disposal of the plea.