Medical shocker: 500 MBBS students lose seats in 17 colleges

Medical education regulator Medical Council of India (MCI) has cancelled the admission of 519 MBBS students enrolled in 17 colleges. They have been attending classes for last three months.

MCI has said that the colleges admitted students directly, violating a Supreme Court order of September 28, 2016, directing the state government to hold centralised counselling and allot colleges to students based on their performance in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).

“While scrutinising the admissions process, we found that 17 colleges in three states have given direct admission to 519 students in violation of the SC order,” a senior MCI official said in response to an RTI application filed by this correspondent.

The matter was being investigated and more admission cancellations were expected. This is also the first time that such a large number of students have been asked to leave the MBBS programme for not complying with the admission process.

The highest number of violations were in Uttar Pradesh by 14 colleges giving direct admission to 481 students. Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have one college each with 38 students admitted in total.

The medical colleges involved defended their move to admit the students, saying the counselling process was very slow and filing up seats by the admission deadline (October, 7, 2016, in this case) was not possible. That was when they decided to give direct admission instead of letting seats remain vacant, college authorities said.

KK Aggarwal, president, Indian Medical Association, a body of medical practitioners, has demanded strict action against the colleges. “MCI should initiate strict action against the colleges for playing with the careers of hundreds of students and maligning the medical profession,” he says.

Aggarwal also says the students cannot be free of blame. “They are party to the violation. Cancellation of admission is a right decision,” Aggarwal added.