Medical colleges may compensate students

Private medical colleges, where admissions to over 500 MBBS students were cancelled by the Medical Council of India (MCI), may have to shell out penalties to the victims.

In a landmark decision, the MCI recently cancelled the admission of 519 MBBS students enrolled in 17 colleges. They had been attending classes for the past three months. Sources said MCI may initiate strict action against the private colleges and compensate the students.

The MCI decision came after a complaint filed by the Indian Medical Association (IMA), which said that their admission was done illegally, flouting norms. The MCI, acting on the complaint, investigated the matter and found merit in the complaint and subsequently the admissions were cancelled. Medical Students Association of India (MSAI) president Adit Desai told The Sunday Guardian that it was the fault of the medical colleges and, therefore, they needed to be penalised. “Students must be compensated as it was not their fault. The colleges should have adhered to the norms while admitting the students,” he said.

The students, sources said, were admitted directly, which violated a Supreme Court order of 28 September 2016, in which it had directed the state governments to hold centralised counselling and allot colleges to students based on their performance in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). Though NEET, a centralised examination for entrance in all medical courses, is beginning from this year, certain exemptions were made last year, which the colleges in question used.

This is the first time that such a large number of students have been asked to leave the MBBS course. While most of the affected students (481) were from 14 colleges in Uttar Pradesh, the others are from colleges in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Last year, the Centre had passed an ordinance to defer NEET by a year for state governments and their affiliated institutions for the academic year 2016-17. The Union Cabinet in May last year passed a special order, which overruled the Supreme Court judgement which, besides all private medical entrance tests, also replaced state-level medical entrance examinations with NEET 2016. However, NEET remained applicable for 15% all India quota seats and management quota seats in private and deemed institutions.

Meanwhile, preparations are being made to conduct NEET all over the country. The examination is scheduled to for 7 May in 104 centres and results will be declared on 8 June. The admit cards for the test have already been issued by the Central Board of Secondary Education. The examination is being conducted for admission to MBBS/BDS courses in India in all the medical and dental colleges, except JIPMER, Puducherry and AIIMS, New Delhi. The decision to introduce NEET as the only entrance examination was taken to reduce the stress on students who had to appear for multiple entrances.