Animesh Bakshi is a bright student, preparing hard to write the medical Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) about two weeks from now. But he is not sure if he will see his name on the merit list.

A day after the Supreme Court directed the state government to admit the 65 medical students, whose admission to the MBBS course under the NRI quota had earlier been cancelled, the government went into a tizzy, realising that it will have to omit 65 students on the merit list from next year?s fresh batch.

?There doesn?t seem to be any way out, because in order to admit the 65 NRI-quota students, we will have to omit the same number of students from the new batch. There is bound to be some trouble,? said a health department officer.

Although chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee welcomed the apex court?s decision, health department officers went into a huddle.

They expressed concern over the possibility of being dragged to court again, once the next merit list for medical students is announced later this year.

Anti-left healthcare bodies and parents of the JEE 2005 candidates called up officers, including Jayashree Mitra, chairman of the central selection committee, trying to find out what the order meant for the new students.

?Since there is no possibility of introducing more seats now, the 65 students will have to be admitted among the allotted seats,? she told them.

Altogether, 1,105 seats are on offer in nine medical colleges, including 57 per cent for general candidates, 22 per cent for Scheduled Castes, six per cent for Scheduled Tribes, 15 per cent for CBSE candidates and three per cent for the physically handicapped. This apart, 10-14 seats are reserved as royal family quota seats.

The prospectus for JEE 2005 has already been issued and all the candidates writing the examination know that they are vying for 1,105 seats ? not minus 65, as is the case now, said Subhas Dasgupta, vice-president of Medical Service Centre?s central state committee.

?We have nothing against the batch of students that will get admission, but this should not be at the cost of curtailing seats in 2006. The government should move the apex court and seek permission for more medical seats, instead of cutting down on this year?s list,? he said.