NT Reporter
Panaji
The High Court of Bombay at Goa on Wednesday declined to stay implementation of the newly introduced 100-Point Reservation Roster for postgraduate (PG) medical admissions at Goa Medical College (GMC).
A Division Bench comprising Justice Valmiki Menezes and Justice Amit S Jamsandekar issued Rule in the matter and expedited the petition for final hearing, while refusing to halt the state-quota counselling process for the 2026-2027 academic year.
The Bench said, “We are therefore of the opinion that after considering the decision-making process, we cannot, at least at the prima facie stage, hold that the same was arbitrary or based on no material at all or that it suffers from total non-application of
mind.”
The court added, “We are mindful of the fact that grant of interim relief to stay the implementation of the roster system would virtually amount to allowing the final relief in the petition. The petitioners would, therefore, have to make out an extremely strong prima facie case to grant same.”
The court noted that reservation policy is generally the prerogative of the government, and judicial review in such matters remains limited.
The writ petition was filed by 41 NEET-PG qualified doctors belonging to the general category. They challenged Rule 6(6) of the Goa (Rules for Admission to the Post-Graduate Degree Courses of the Goa University at the Goa Medical College) Rules, 2026, along with the seat matrix published on October 9, 2026.
Under the notified framework, postgraduate seats across 22 medical specialties are allocated alphabetically on a roster basis. The petitioners argued that the combined reservation – comprising 41% for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes, alongside 10% for Economically Weaker Sections – is arbitrary, fails to reflect merit and curtails open-category opportunities in key clinical disciplines.
Advocate Dattaprasad Lawande, appearing for the petitioners, said the State had abruptly abandoned the merit-cum-choice admission mechanism followed until 2025-2026.
Citing the Supreme Court ruling in Dr Preeti Srivastava v State of MP, he said specialty medical education must prioritise merit, adding that the State lacked fresh cogent material to justify shifting to a rigid roster-based allocation.
Advocate General Devidas Pangam, appearing for the State, said introducing a 100-point roster fulfils constitutional mandates of substantive equality. He said the policy was grounded in an August 14, 2024, report by the Goa Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
He added that the draft rules were finalised after inter-departmental consultations, approved by the Council of Ministers on May 7, 2026, and officially gazetted on May 29, 2026, prior to the NEET-PG examination held in August.
The court rejected the argument that the executive decision lacked foundational evidence. While refusing interim stay prayers, the court acknowledged that the petition raises arguable questions of law requiring detailed affidavits, issued Rule, and directed that the hearing be expedited.
