Chennai: Coming to the rescue of an aspiring MBBS girl student, born to Indian parents but in the US and became a US citizen by birth, who has been allotted a medical seat in Chennai on the condition to produce the Indian citizenship certificate by August 8, the Madras high court has directed authorities to accommodate her in the college provisionally on the condition that if she fails to produce the certificate within 12 weeks, the institute will terminate her admission.

Justice G.Jayachandran gave the directive while disposing of a petition from student Abirami Anbalagan.

Petitioner's counsel P.V.S.Giridhar submitted that the petitioner's father is a practising advocate in Chennai and her mother was a doctor. In 2001, her father was employed in TCS and posted in USA for a year and her mother accompanied him. She was born on June 30, 2001, in USA and she became a US citizen by birth. Her family returned to India in February 2002 itself and she has been residing with her parents in India from then on. The petitioner, who belongs to MBC category, after completing her plus-2and clearing Neet, she applied to the selection committee for MBBS under both government and management quota. Meanwhile, on becoming a major on June 30, 2019, she applied for Indian citizenship on July 8, he added.

Giridhar said the petitioner attended the counseling on July 11, 2019, and during verification of original documents, the selection committee stated that she was not entitled for seat under MBC since she was not an Indian citizen and treated her as an overseas citizen of India. When she approached the secretary, selection committee, she was instructed to get the transfer certificate updated by inserting the reference to her application for Indian citizenship and also an affidavit stating that she has applied for Indian citizenship. Accordingly, she produced the updated transfer certificate and an affidavit. In the second round of counseling on July 31, she was allotted with a seat in ESIC medical college in K.K.Nagar, Chennai.

However, she was not permitted to get admitted to the college and informed that her allotment would be confirmed once she submit the order passed on her application for Indian citizenship and till then the allotment would be withheld. She was further informed that she has to submit theorder granting her citizenship within 3 days before the mop-up counseling, failing which allotment would be cancelled. Therefore, the petitioner has filed the present petition, Giridhar added.

The judge directed the authorities to accommodate the petitioner in the ESIC medical college, K.K.Nagar, Chennai, provisionally on the condition that if she fails to produce the citizenship certificate within 12 weeks, the institute will terminate her admission without further notice and on the part of the petitioner, she shall give an undertaking that if she was unable to produce the citizenship certificate within 12 weeks, she will get back all her certificate and also compensate the monetary loss of Rs 10 lakh as mandated in clause 15 of the prospectus, the judge added.