MUMBAI, May 2: In a major development, the Bombay High Court today directed the state government to redraft its rules on MBBS and BDS admissions.

The full bench comprising Justice A C Agarwal, Justice A V Sawant and Justice P S Patankar, struck down the existing rules on medical and dental admissions and asked the government to come out with a new admission policy within three weeks.

Significantly, the medical colleges run by the Mumbai and Thane Municipal Corporations, along with the Bharati Vidyapeeth medical institutes in the state (which till now were independent of the state-run MBBS and BDS colleges) will also be included in the new admission plans of the state.

Calling it a significant development, the State Advocate General, C J Savant, told Express Newsline on Friday evening: ``It now becomes clear that the state has the right to formulate new admission rules .'' Savant added that a better picture of the medical admission scenario will emerge at the next high court hearing on Monday.

Earlier, admissions of 2,022 MBBS and BDS aspirants in the state were delayed till as late as November 1996 when the state government had moved Supreme Court last year so as to claim its right of distributing seats in proportion to the population of various regions in Mahahrashtra.

Being aggrieved by the August 29 full bench ruling of the Bombay High Court, the state had filed an appeal before the Supreme Court. On 26 September, 1996 the SC directed the state to restructure the admission rule within 2 weeks.

Petitions, however, were filed by students in the state urging that the state had started process of admissions without restructuring the impugned rule.

The legal battles fought with the state in the Nagpur and Aurngabad benches of the HC affected more than two thousand students who had already been cleared for admission.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.