Chandigarh, June 11 — The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday declined to intervene in the counselling process for post-graduate (PG) medical admissions at Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector-32, effectively dismissing a petition filed by five students challenging the June 3 notification on seat allotment.
The vacation bench of Justice Mahabir Singh Sindhu and Justice HS Grewal orally observed that the court was “not inclined to interfere in the process,” signalling judicial deference to the ongoing admission proceedings. A detailed order is awaited.
The petitioners — Avijit Chander, Tanvi, Reeshab Bhatia, Dhriti Garg and Aditya Jain — had questioned GMCH-32’s decision to fill 50% state quota seats, left vacant after the quashing of UT pool reservations, under the all-India merit category. “In a completely illegal, arbitrary and mala fide manner, the state quota seats which have fallen vacant owing to the quashing of the reservation of seats for UT pool category, have been put in all-India quota seats without there being any power to do so,” the petition stated.
PG medical seats are divided into two main categories — all-India and state quota. Prior to the Supreme Court’s January 29, 2025, ruling, Chandigarh’s state quota was further split into institutional preference (IP) and domicile/residence-based seats.
Following the apex court’s judgment striking down domicile-based reservations, the UT administration issued a directive on April 9, 2025, converting UT domicile seats under the state quota into institutional preference seats for the third round of counselling.
Several students had earlier contested this April 9 order, but the High Court dismissed those pleas on May 27, directing the UT to comply with the Supreme Court ruling. Subsequently, GMCH-32 on June 3 notified its third counselling round, stating that state quota seats would now be filled on the basis of all-India merit in NEET-PG 2024.
According to the petitioners, this has resulted in all-India quota exceeding the 50% cap, which they argued is unlawful. They claimed that around 35 state quota seats remained for third counselling and should not be merged with all-India quota.
However, the court stood by the official interpretation and did not find merit in the petitioners’ claim that the June 3 notification was in breach of the legal quota framework.
The dismissal clears the way for GMCH-32 to proceed with admissions as planned for the 2024–25 PG session.
