The Madras High Court has directed all the seven medical colleges in Puducherry to furnish the names of students who have been admitted into postgraduate medical courses for the academic year 2017-18, without following the due process of counselling.
The First Bench, comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar, before which a petition filed by advocate V.B.R. Menon had come up recently, also issued notice to the respondents including the Government of Puducherry, Government of India and the Medical Council of India, returnable by July 24.
The petitioner had sought to declare all the admissions made by these colleges into the PG medical courses in contravention to PG Medical Education Regulations, 2000. He submitted that the seven colleges were required to admit the students through common counselling by the Centralised Admission Committee (Centac).
‘Exorbitant fees taken’
He further said that 314 seats were available in 24 different PG courses through counselling. Of these seats, 219 have been filled up after the second round of counselling. The candidates had also deposited the prescribed fee in the form of demand drafts to Centac on receipt of their provisional allotment letters. However, the petitioner alleged that the colleges had refused to accept the fees and had instead demanded large sums of money from the candidates. Only those who could afford such “exorbitant fees” had been admitted.
Stating that these colleges were bound to admit students who had secured admission pursuant to counselling by Centac, the petitioner said that a glance at the lists of admitted students as notified by Centac on May 31, 2017, and the actual lists of students admitted by the above colleges show that they had actually admitted students with lower NEET scores as well as those who had not undergone counselling.
