The Bombay high court while asking the Medical Council of India on why it does not have any mechanism in place to verify whether students admitted to medical courses by private medical colleges are as per the state merit list, has said that it was not inclined to pass orders in favour of a student who did not secure an admission in a Pune-based private medical college. The student had claimed that while she had a better merit score, students with lesser merit or even those who were not eligible were admitted by the college and she was refused. The court observed that passing orders in favour of the student would mean displacing a student who had secured admission, but as those students were not a party to the petition it was not inclined to pass orders.
A division bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice G S Kulkarni while hearing the petition filed by Sunita Pal through advocate Amogh Singh was informed that after the regular rounds of admission for the medical course had been completed, a mop round was conducted to fill up the remaining seats. Singh submitted that Pal had received a call from the private medical college at Pune on July 30 asking her to reach the college and secure her admission by July 31. Singh submitted that Pal who is based in Mumbai was unable to reach the college on the said date due to the lockdown.
Singh added that it was only later in August that Pal came to know that students who were much lower than her in the merit list or were not even eligible had secured admission. When she confronted the college, she was told said that as she had failed to reach on the given date she could not ask for a seat. Aggrieved by this arbitrariness of the college, Singh submitted that Pal approached the court on August 14.
On its part advocate, Ganesh Gole for the MCI submitted that as per admission rules if it was found that non-meritorious student/s were admitted than such admission would have to be cancelled or the seat would have to be surrendered.
However, after hearing the submissions, the court asked the college on the logic behind giving students only a day’s time to reach the college and take admission during the pandemic and lockdown situation. The court also questioned the state how it could allow the college to have such a system.
“It seems that due to the pandemic only those students who were in and around Pune were granted admission even if they were less meritorious or not even eligible,” said Datta. He further asked the MCI why it did not have any mechanism to check whether colleges were adhering to admission norms and were admitting only those students who were as per the state merit list.
The court while agreeing that the Pal had a valid point said that as she had not joined the less meritorious or ineligible students as a party in the petition who had secured admission in the private medical college it was not inclined to pass orders favouring her. “Passing orders would imply displacing a student already admitted. You should study better and score better and seek admission next year,” suggested Datta.
The court, however, directed Singh to inform the court as to what course of action his client (Pal) wanted to adopt in light of the observations and posted the matter for hearing on September 29.