HC gives state 24 hours to explain non-local tag to Telangana native

Hyderabad: Wondering how the state, which sponsored a Telangana student under its state quota to a military school at Dehradun, can describe him as a non-local candidate now, the Telangana high court on Thursday gave 24 hours to the state administration to explain the rationale behind its decision. A bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J Sreenivas Rao gave this interim direction while hearing a petition filed by Chepuri Avinash, who is aspiring to become a doctor by securing a seat in MBBS in the ongoing counselling session. He had joined the military school and studied Class 8, 9 and 10 at Dehradun. Later, he returned to Telangana and completed Intermediate in the state. Since he did not complete the four-year consecutive studies in Telangana, the Kaloji Health University authorities put his name in the non-local candidates' list. Petitioner's counsel termed it as unfair because the candidate is a permanent resident of Telangana. Moreover, the authorities had treated him as a local candidate last year after he obtained a permanent resident certificate from the revenue authorities. Interestingly, it was the state which sent the student to Dehradun to study at the sainik school there under state quota, the counsel said. The bench too felt that the way the officials were interpreting the local candidate definition was seemingly rigid and sought to know from additional advocate general Imran Khan whether he would use his office to make the relevant authorities see reason in the grievance made out by the petitioner.