Kathmandu, January 14

The Supreme Court today issued an interim order to the Ministry of Education and Institute of Medicine under Tribhuvan University to not take any decision regarding enrolment of students for MBBS course until the next hearing.

The interim order was issued by a single bench of Justice Meera Khadka. The apex court also asked both the sides to appear in the court on Sunday for the hearing, according to Advocate Dipendra Jha.

The Supreme Court  issued the order responding to a case filed against the Institute of Medicine’s decision to merge reserved quota allocated for students living below the poverty line. Institute of Medicine had notified all students, who wanted to enrol for MBBS programme under the quota, that their certificates did not state any ground to prove that they were below the poverty line and therefore the seats would be filled through Open House Counselling.

Ajay Kumar Pasi, Ram Pukar Yadav, Ankita Jha, Ajay Kumar Chaudhari, Sabnam Khatum and Rewant Khadka had filed the petition.

Tribhuvan University Educational Administration Rule reserved 20 per cent seats for indigent students.

However, Institute of Medicine issued a notice on January 9, saying the seats reserved for indigent students were being merged with full payment seats.

They said that the Tribhuvan University rules had allocated few seats for Madhesis and those seats were now merged into paying seats, which was against the constitutional and legal provisions.