On 17th February 2023, the Supreme Court of Nepal has mandated the Medical Education Commission (MEC) to resume the stopped admission process for MD and MS of medical education from the point where it was stopped. The order was issued by a joint bench of Supreme Court Justices Dr. Annad Mohan Bhattarai and Sushmalata Mathema in the name of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Office.
The order was issued after looking at the notification published by the Medical Education Commission on 24th December 2022, which stated that the physical presence matching schedule for the government group and the online matching schedule for the open side are both the first stage computer best system and the same cannot be done manually for any reason. The Supreme Court has ordered that candidates participating in the stage should be given the opportunity to choose the vacant seats according to their priority, and only after that, the second round of matching will be conducted in the vacant seats based on the order of merit and priority.
The court has issued an injunction in the name of the opponents to restart the current admission process from where it was stopped. The order came after Dr. Biplav Lamichhane, a student who is in the process of enrolling in the post-graduate level, filed a petition in the Supreme Court on 29th December 2022, saying that the procedure for admission of students for post-graduate studies has been fraudulently amended.
It is worth noting that on 1st January 2023, the Supreme Court had given an interim order to implement the old matching system of postgraduate level towards medical education. However, the commission went to court again against that order.
The Supreme Court's recent order will now ensure that the admission process for MD and MS of medical education is carried out in a fair and transparent manner, providing students with equal opportunities to choose the vacant seats according to their priority.
