New Delhi: Students in the country strive and toil to secure admission to educational institutions on the basis of merit, so it is high time that backdoor entries, including into medical colleges, be stopped, the Delhi High Court ruled.
The court made the observation while dismissing an appeal filed by five students who were admitted to L N Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Bhopal, in 2016 without being counselled centrally by the Department of Medical Education (DME). However, as per the Supreme Court’s order, admissions to all government and private medical colleges in the country will follow a centralised counselling mechanism on the basis of the NEET score.
The Medical Council of India (MCI) issued letters of discharge to the five petitioners in April 2017, and thereafter, several communications were sent. However, neither the students nor the medical college paid attention to them. College officials continued to treat the petitioners as their students and allowed them to attend the course, take the examinations, and be promoted.
Eventually, the five petitioners sought quashing of the discharge communications issued by the MCI, and were permitted to continue their studies as regular medical students. They filed an appeal challenging the order of the single judge. However, a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh also dismissed the appeal because it lacked merit. ‘It is high time that such backdoor entries in educational institutions, including medical colleges, should stop. Lakhs of students all over the country work hard and toil to secure admissions to educational institutions on the basis of their merit,’ the bench said in its order on September 9.
‘To permit any backdoor entry to any educational institution would be grossly unfair to those who are denied admission, despite being more meritorious, on account of the seats being taken and blocked by such backdoor entrants,’ it said.
According to the petition, the petitioners are solely responsible for the mess they find themselves in. ‘Had they acted in terms of the discharge letter of April 26, 2017, they would have saved four years of their lives. But they did not, and acted recklessly. Despite not having any interim orders in their favour in their writ petition, they continued to attend the course — obviously, at their own peril,’ the court said.
MCI advocate T Singhdev argued that despite discharge of petitioners by the MCI on April 26, 2017, the college and the students chose to ignore the same, despite repeated communications with them. Furthermore, he noted that there was no interim order obtained by the petitioners from the court and despite that they continued to accept admissions in subsequent years and to take exams at the college, which they did at their own risk and could not claim equity in their favor.
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Mr. Singhdev said the petitioners did not attend centralised counselling and they were well aware from day one that their admissions to the college were irregular and illegal due to the judgement of the Supreme Court. Counsel for the petitioners contended that they ranked higher in the NEET examination than even those who were granted admission through the central counseling conducted by the DME for this medical school and, therefore, should be treated leniently.
According to the court, it is for this reason that, if the medical college had informed the DME of the vacancy position in time, the DME would have conducted further counselling and sent names on the basis of the NEET examination in 2016. ‘It is quite possible that the names of other candidates, more meritorious than the five petitioners, may have been sent,’ the bench said. ‘Since the respondent medical college does not appear to have informed the DME of the vacancy position, and they proceeded to grant admissions to the five petitioners much before the close of the date of admission on October 7, 2016, the other meritorious students, obviously, remained unaware that they could stake a claim against a seat in the respondent medical college on the basis of their merit. Thus, to say that no other meritorious candidate has shown up, is neither here nor there,’ it added.
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