Local universities cannot be "partial" in giving admissions to students of their own state, the Gujarat High Court has held.

A division bench of Chief Justice S.J. Mukhopadhaya and Justice Akil Kureshi held, "By admitting local students ahead of all outside students without prescribing any quota for either of the streams and that too without prescribing any minimum standard of passing in the open test would amount to virtual hundred percent reservation in favor of local students."

The division bench ordered Gujarat University to prepare a fresh merit list of all candidates for the post graduate nursing course. The court observed that local students may be ranked higher only when the merits of two students are equal.

Ronald Thakor had filed an application before the high court and challenged the validity of relevant rules and regulations which provided "preference" in admission to the candidates graduating from Gujarat University.

The petitioner sought admission in the post graduate course after passing B.Sc.(Nursing) from R.K.D.F. Nursing College of Bhopal in 2008 and gaining one year of work experience. The petitioner claimed that the university, while preparing a merit list after declaration of the open test in connection with the admission, gave preference to local students and his name was not listed as it should have been.

Counsel for the university contended that the rules do permit institutional preference. "Such institutional preference is held to be valid by series of decisions of the high court as well as of the Supreme Court. The university has thus committed no error or illegality by preparing the merit list on the basis of rules which have statutory force."

Advocate for the local students also contended that action of the university in granting institutional preference was not illegal. However, the division bench disagreed with their contentions and stated, "We may recall that in addition to there not being any minimum passing standard in the open test prescribed under the rules, there is no separate quota of seats allocated to the local students.