Chennai, July 8 (IANS) The Tamil Nadu government on Wednesday informed the Madras High Court that the three suggestions of the Central government on temporary arrangements for admission to the 150 MBBS seats at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Madurai, be considered by the institute’s governing body.
The governing body of the institute is meeting on July 16.
The Union Health and Family Welfare Secretary, in the counter-affidavit filed during the previous hearing, had stated that the ministry was willing to commence the services of AIIMS, Madurai, subject to availability of alternate space for starting the MBBS course as well as the Out Patient Department (OPD).
The court was hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by K. Pushpavanam, a law student in Madurai, seeking a temporary campus for AIIMS, Madurai to provide OPD services and to start MBBS courses like other AIIMS.
The division bench of Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice S. Ananthi, after hearing the contention of the Tamil Nadu government, said that the court was deferring hearing in the case till July 26.
The Centre had, in a letter on June 4, given three options — either to send the students to the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Puducherry, or allow students to study at a government medical/arts college, or to permit admissions in any self-financing medical colleges at Madurai.
Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian had, on July 1, told media persons that the state government was not comfortable with any of the three suggestions given by the Union government for including the first batch of MBBS students in Madurai AIIMS till it gets its own building.
–IANS
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