The muddle over sanctioning additional seats to two Telangana medical colleges is likely to turn into a legal battle between the state government and Medical Council of India (MCI) with the former mulling moving the Supreme Court even as the latter wants to take its time in complying with the AP high court order to sanction the seats.

While the MCI rejected the state governments proposal to sanction 50 additional seats each to Osmania Medical College,Gandhi Medical College and Kakatiya Medical College,the AP high court had on July 13 directed the apex body of medical education to sanction 50 additional seats each to Osmania and Kakatiya medical colleges within two days.
However,the MCI says the HC order conflicts with the Supreme Court guidelines according to which the seat sanctioning process must be completed by July 15.It is a sensitive issue.If we follow the APHC order,it would be defiance of the Supreme Court guidelines and it would lead to contempt of court.The better way we are looking at is to get a clarification from the Supreme Court before sanctioning the additional seats, said a senior MCI official.
But the crisis is threatening to snowball into a political issue.While appealing to the Supreme Court against the high court order is among other options before the MCI,the state government,after getting wind of it,is contemplating moving the Supreme Court before the MCI does so that it can get the first mover advantage.Interestingly,the government has the support of TRS,which expressed its solidarity to the government in the case.In fact,the idea of moving the apex court came from B Vinod Kumar,former MP and TRS politburo member.It is time for us to fight unitedly to ensure justice for the Telangana region.We must keep our political interests aside for now.I have spoken to minister Kondru Marali and extended my partys full support on the issue, said Vinod Kumar.

While waiting for a positive response from MCI,Kondru Murali,minister of medical education,said,We hope the MCI will respond positively in a day or two.The MCI officials told me that they wanted to seek a clarification from the Supreme Court.I believe in their words.If they failed to comply with the high court order,then we will be left with no option but to move the Supreme Court, the minister said.