Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana high court has stayed the counselling for MBBS seats under the Scheduled Caste (SC) category in Chandigarh‘s Government Medical College and Hospital.The interim order was passed on Monday on a batch of petitions challenging the decision of the authorities to exclude certain candidates under the SC category by terming them “migrant SC candidates”.Out of 200 seats in the college, 23 are reserved for the SC candidates.It was argued that the petitioners are bona fide UT candidates who have studied in Chandigarh from nursery till Class 12. Also, they had valid SC certificates issued by the Chandigarh administration and not claimed SC reservation or MBBS seats anywhere else in the country.The counsels pointed out that when the MBBS admission prospectus was issued on Aug 8, it stipulated only one condition for SC candidates: that those holding certificates issued by Chandigarh administration would be eligible for the UT SC pool, while those holding certificates from other states or UTs would be treated under the general category.However, at the time of issuing the MBBS merit list on Aug 20, the petitioners were declared ineligible as migrant SC candidates. The counsels contended that the UT administration cannot change the rules midway through counselling without prior notice in the prospectus, adding that Chandigarh has yet to adopt the specific central govt instructions debarring migrant SCs.The court issued a notice of motion to the Chandigarh administration and ordered an immediate stay on the SC category MBBS counselling process.Meanwhile, the counselling for 380 eligible MBBS admissions under NEET (UG)-2026 was conducted on Monday. All seats under the general UT pool Chandigarh and NRI categories have been filled. The cutoff merit for the general UT pool category stood at 542 marks scored in NEET (UG)-2026. This represents a significant increase compared to the previous year, when the cutoff merit for the general UT pool category was 513 marks.
