AIZAWL, Aug 29: The
Gauhati High Court on Tuesday
vacated its stay order on
the amended Mizoram State
Technical Entrance Examination
(STEE) rules to allow the
Mizoram Government to
complete the process of
MBBS admission for students
it had already selected.
The Mizoram Chakma
Students’ Union (MCSU)
had challenged the Mizoram
(Selection of Candidates for
Higher Technical Courses)
(Sixth Amendment) Rules,
2015, which were notified on
March 24 that year. The new
rules placed “Zo-Ethnic people
who are native inhabitants”
in Category I of the
State’s selection criteria, by
which they are given first
preference to fill up available
seats under the State’s quota
in various colleges across
India. The 1999 rules were
amended after the Mizo Zirlai
Pawl (Mizo Students’ Association)
protested against
the selection of Chakma students
under Category I to
pursue medical and engineering
courses under the
Mizoram quota.
Following a writ petition
by the Chakma students’ union,
the Gauhati High Court
had stayed the new rules on June 24, 2016. The High
Court also sent a record of
the petition to its Aizawl
bench for a final hearing.
The Aizawl bench of the
Gauhati High Court, in a
judgement issued late on
Tuesday evening, said that
despite the case having been
listed on many dates, no one
appeared for the petitioners.
Therefore, the petition was
dismissed by default and the
stay order of June 24, 2016,
has also been vacated.
After vacation of the stay
order, the Mizoram Government
filled up 75 per cent of
the MBBS quota as per the
new rules, excluding Chakma
students under Category I.
However, in June this year,
the petitioners filed an application
for restoration of the
writ petition. The court restored
the petition in August.
The court also restored the
June 24, 2016 stay order.
The court pointed out that
the filling up of 75 per cent
seats for MBBS by the Mizoram
Government after dismissal
of the Chakma students’
petition was not mentioned
in the application for
restoration of the writ petition.
“We cannot allow the remaining
vacant seats go wasted
due to pendency of the
writ petition, which was dismissed
in default and subsequently
restored,” the judgement
said, adding: “We also
at this stage do not find it
proper to turn the clock back
by interfering with the admissions
already made after dismissal
of the writ petition.”
While allowing the Mizoram
Government to go ahead
with the process of MBBS admission,
the High Court stated
that all admissions shall be
subject to the final decision on
the writ petition. The court
fixed October 4, 2018 for the
final hearing on the petition.
Before the amendment,
Category I of the STEE included
children of local permanent
residents of Mizoram.
The term ‘local permanent
residents’ means those
who are indigenous people of
the State of Mizoram and
have been residing permanently
in the State. As per the
previous Rules, the Chakmas
came under Category I. The
MCSU alleged that the Government’s
modification of the
STEE Rules amounts to discrimination
of the minority
communities of Mizoram, including
the Chakmas.
The decision
to modify or rectify the
definitions in the STEE Rules
is nothing but racial discrimination
to deliberately exclude
the Chakmas from their
rightful place in Category I, it
had said. - Assam Tribune
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