Medical Council notice shatters NEET-qualified MBBS students’ dreams

MBBS Students in various medical colleges around the country are devastated after receiving Medical Council of India notices asking them to vacate their seats. They allege they have been misguided by their colleges.

Himanshu Mishra, 25, is among the 519 students who received discharge notices from MCI. An MBBS student in a college near Lucknow since October 7, 2016, he received the admission cancellation notice on January 27 this year.

“I am not eligible for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) because the government has fixed 25 years as the upper age to appear in NEET,” he says.

Komal, 21, from Agra too is inconsolable after losing her seat. “Why is MCI taking action against just us? Why has no action been taken against colleges that played with our careers,” she asks.

Dr (Major) Gulshan Garg (retd), chairman, Sankalp Charitable Trust that had petitioned the Supreme Court for implementation of NEET, sides with the colleges. “NEET was implemented for the first time in 2016 and counselling was not streamlined. Our country has an acute shortage of doctors. If colleges took admission directly, I think students should not be victimised for that.”

The Supreme Court on September 28, 2016, had directed state governments to hold centralised counselling and allot colleges to students based on their performance in NEET.

Garg blames all director generals – medical education of the states concerned for the mess, but the chairman, monitoring committee, MCI, Prof Raj Bahadur, disagrees with him.

“We cannot allow the colleges to circumvent the admission process. Both students and colleges have breached the law,” says Bahadur, who is also vice chancellor of the Baba Farid University, Faridkot.

The director general – medical education in Uttar Pradesh didn’t respond to this correspondent’s mail.

A senior health ministry official says such admissions can be termed ‘backdoor entry’ to medical colleges and deserve to be cancelled. “Clearing NEET is not the only criteria to get the admission. More than 3.5 lakh students passed the NEET exam, but only 60,000 seats are available,” he adds.