The court upheld residency-based admission criteria for medical college, affirming that such classification is rational and serves state interests, thus not violating constitutional provisions.

JUDGMENT :

BHARATI DANGRE, J.

1. ‘Rule’. By consent of the parties, the Writ Petition is taken up for final hearing.

The Petitioner, Miss. Snigdha Sudhindra Uppoor, a resident of Goa and aspirant for securing admission to first year professional degree course of MBBS in Goa Medical College, Bambolim, has approached this Court being aggrieved by a stipulation in the common Prospectus for admission to the first year professional degree course Session 2025-26, restricting which has restricted the eligibility of the candidate under ‘General Category’ by providing that the candidate must have passed XII^th or equivalent examination from schools/colleges in the State of Goa, in addition to the condition of being a resident of the State.

2. The Petitioner, born to the parents originally from Udupi in the State of Karnataka, on being married in the year 2004, chose State of Goa as their place of abode since November 2004. Both Doctors by profession, established themselves in the Village of Calangute, State of Goa.

Born in Goa, the Petitioner completed her schooling in Sharada Mandir School, Miramar, situated at Panaji and secured 94.3% marks in the X^th standard Board examination.

In her better interest, her parents admitted her to Sri Chaitanya Junior College, at Vijaywada, Andhra Pradesh, which runs a residential programme in higher studies and more for the reason, that her brother had already secured admission in BITS, Hyderabad and her parents being professionals, at times were required to travel out of Goa and by admitting her in a residential school, her academic and personal interest could be best secured.

As a consequence, the Petitioner appeared for the XII^th standard Board examination, conducted by the Board of Intermediate Education, Andhra Pradesh and secured 98.1% marks.

Since the Petitioner and also her parents are residents of Goa, she is very much interested in securing admission in the MBBS degree course in the Goa Medical College, which is affiliated to Goa University.

3. For securing admission in the professional decree course of medicine/dentistry, the Directorate of Technical Education has issued a common Prospectus for Session 2025-26, setting out the schedule of admission activities, including the submission of Application forms, display of merit list, etc. The information contained therein pertains to the Common Entrance Test (CET) and admission procedure applicable to the Government, Government aided and unaided colleges in Goa offering Bachelor’s Degree courses in various distinct streams, including Medicine (Allopathy, Homeopathy, Ayurveda), Pharmacy, Allied Health Sciences, Nursing etc.

The Prospectus cover 200 seats in G