The Madras High Court has set aside an order passed by the Medical Council of India (now the National Medical Commission) on September 7, 2017 and a consequential order passed by the Government of Puducherry on September 14 that year, discharging 787 MBBS students admitted to private institutions under the management quota during the academic year 2016-17.
Justice Krishnan Ramasamy allowed writ petitions filed by the private institutions as well as the students in 2017 and 2018 and quashed the discharge orders passed by the MCI and the government since the students were not admitted on the basis of common counselling, and many were reportedly admitted after the cut-off date of September 30, 2016.
The judge said the MCI and the government ought not to have been “carried away” by a complaint made by a Permanent Admission Committee, headed by a retired High Court judge, and discharged the students — that too a year after their course — without giving due consideration to the admission procedures adopted by the colleges.
The court observed that a perusal of the Permanent Admission Committee’s report would indicate it was prepared merely on the basis of suspicion and such a report had been relied upon by the MCI and the government to discharge the students. The MCI had not even been able to segregate the number of students who had been admitted after the cut-off date and others, he pointed out.
Also taking note that by now the students had completed four years of their course and were pursuing the fifth year, the judge said discharging them would turn out to be disastrous since they would have nurtured thoughts of completing their studies soon and involved themselves fully in obtaining the degree for commencing medical practice.
“Even assuming that there has been error in the procedure followed by the colleges, the same is not sufficient to set aside the admissions of the petitioners/students by the MCI and the Government of Puducherry,” the judge observed.
