The Delhi High Court (HC) recently expressed concerns over the backdoor entry in medical colleges and termed it an insult to meritorious students. The high court made this observation while dismissing an appeal by 5 medical students who were denied permission to continue their medical studies as they had skipped the official counselling conducted by the Department of Medical Education (DME).
While lakhs of medical aspirants annually appearing for the NEET examinations to secure admissions in the medical colleges, the practice of backdoor entry is massively discouraging and unfair for the hardworking aspirants.
According to the directions of the Supreme Court (SC), the admissions in medical colleges, government and private, need to be done through a centralized counselling system post the NEET examination and result declaration. However, LN Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Bhopal had granted admission to 5 students in 2016 without the counselling process by the Department of Medical Education (DME).
The 5 students and the college paid no attention to the letters of discharge issued by the Medical Council of India (MCI) in 2017 and the college allowed the students to attend the course and appear for the examinations as per the normal course schedule.
The 5 students further signed a petition against the discharge issued by MCI and requested the courts to grant them permission to continue with their medical studies as regular students. This petition was dismissed once by a single judge. They went ahead to challenge the order of the single judge but the bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh also ruled out their appeal.
The judges further stated, "It is high time that such backdoor entries in educational institutions, including medical colleges, should stop." The judges further added how lakhs of students from all over the country work hard and toil to secure admissions to the institutions based on their merits only.
Rejecting the petitioners' appeal, the judges added how they themselves are to be accountable for the adversities they face.
They were blamed for not taking the discharge letters seriously and the decision of continuing the term for four years without any favourable interim orders. The discharge letters has been issued on April 26, 2017, but not acted upon by the students, not the medical institution. T Singhdev, Advocate representing the MCI shared how the matter was not paid attention to even after repeated trials of communication from MCI's end.
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Singhdev also added that not undergoing counselling by DME even after being aware of the procedures, makes this an illegal procedure of admission.
As per the petitioners, they should be shown leniency as they secured decently well ranks compared to the students who got the admissions through DME conducted counselling. On this, the court stated that had DME been informed on time about the vacancies better deserving candidates than the 5 petitioners would have rightfully gotten admissions on a merit basis. The bench quoted “It is quite possible that the names of other candidates, more meritorious than the five petitioners, may have been sent”.
