NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Wednesday faulted Uttarakhand govt’s 2009 policy mandating non-state students admitted to MBBS courses in its medical colleges under the 15% all-India quota (AIQ) to either serve in remote areas for five years or pay Rs 30 lakh in addition to steep annual fees.
“What is the use of asking a student from Tamil Nadu, who gets admission into an MBBS course in a govt medical college in Uttarakhand based on his all-India rank and primarily taught medicine in English, to serve in inaccessible areas of the state?” asked a bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh. “Will he be able to interact with patients in remote villages and inaccessible areas and treat them? It is a laudable concept for inter-state exchange of civil servants and other subject experts. However, a state cannot decide rural service for non-state all-India quota students, doing MBBS from the govt college within its territory. It requires a uniform policy decision, for which the Union govt is the competent authority,” the bench said.
As per the 2009 policy decision of the Uttarakhand govt, an AIQ student was required to sign a bond for Rs 30 lakh promising to serve in rural areas for five years on completing an MBBS course from its medical college. It also stipulated that if an AIQ student opted out of mandatory rural service in the state, then he would have to pay an annual fee of Rs 2.2 lakh instead of Rs 15,000.