The Madras High Court on Wednesday put a private medical college in a fix by directing it to deposit capitation fees of ₹2.76 crore, reportedly collected from the parents of five MBBS aspirants in 2019 without issuing any receipt, in a separate account so that the amount can be used to provide special scholarship to meritorious students admitted in government or private colleges in the academic year 2023-24.
Justice R. Suresh Kumar ordered that if Sri Muthukumaran Medical College Hospital and Research Institute near Mangadu in Chennai decides to agitate the issue by denying the receipt of capitation fees, then it would have to face a Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) inquiry with respect to affidavits filed by the parents of the five students confirming the payment of capitation fees.
The judge held that the parents would not be entitled to a refund of the capitation fees since they had gotten their wards admitted to the college on the last day of admission on August 30, 2019 without their names having been sponsored by the Selection Committee of the Directorate of Medical Education. However, since the students had already completed four years of studies, he let them complete their course.
The judge made it clear that the amount of ₹2.7 crore should be deposited, with interest at the rate of 6% per annum from 2019, in a separate account to be opened jointly by the Secretary of the Selection Committee of DME as well as the medical university. He further granted liberty to the National Medical Commission to take necessary action against the private college for having admitted totally nine students in violation of the rules in 2019.
Since five of those nine students had been admitted unauthorisedly in seats meant for government quota, the judge ordered that the college surrender five of its management quota seats for the academic year 2023-24 to be filled through government quota this year. The orders were passed while disposing of the writ petitions filed by seven of the nine students to let them complete their MBBS course.
When the judge asked the parents of the writ petitioners to disclose the details of the fees paid by them to the college to secure admission for their children, the parents of five students filed individual petitions stating that they gave a one-time payment ranging between ₹45 to ₹65 lakh each depending upon the marks scored by their children in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), apart from annual fees ranging between ₹13 lakh to ₹15 lakh.
The parents also told the court that they had paid the money by pledging their jewels, selling properties, mortgaging their houses, withdrawing their savings, and availing loans in order to fulfil their children’s desire to pursue medicine. The judge recorded their submissions and observed that there would be no purpose in discharging the students from the course now after they had studied for four long years.
He also recorded the submission made on behalf of the private medical college that the nine students admitted by it in the stray vacancies that arose on the last day of admission had scored between 112 and 290 marks, whereas Madras Medical College itself had admitted two students who had scored just 109 and 123 marks in NEET in 2019. The college also pointed out that many other private colleges had admitted students who had scored between 107 and 112 out of 720.
