Observing allegations that managements of private medical colleges in the State have filled up NRI quota without following merits by getting huge sums for those seats, a division bench of the Madras High Court has issued a set of directives to the State government.
They included calling for the list of candidates admitted under the NRI, State and all India quotas with their respective marks (category wise viz., OC, BC, MBC etc). The reply shall be submitted on September 26.
Originally, one S Dheeran of Coimbatore approached the court for a direction to the State, to undertake the necessary and proper counselling and mop-up procedure to fill up 207 seats that had become available owing to non-filling of NRI quota, as per merit and prescribed procedure. And the plea was rejected by a single judge. Hence, the present appeal.
The appellant’s counsel told the bench of Justices, N Kirubakaran and P Velmurugan, that as per clause 11 of the prospectus issued by the selection committee, unfilled NRI quota seats in the first round of counselling should be filled up only from the NRI candidates through manual counselling and they should not have been reverted back to the management quota. About 260 seats were earmarked under the NRI quota, of which only 53 were filled up.
As per the judgement of the Apex Court, the State government should have conducted manual counselling for allotment of students and after the completion of counselling, it should determine the number of seats that were still vacant and thereafter, forward a list of students in the order of merit, equalling to ten times the number of vacant seats to the medical college. However, the 207 seats under the NRI quota remained vacant and without conducting manual counselling for those seats, the State returned it to the managements, which had filled up them allegedly, without following merits by getting huge sums.
Answers sought
| The judges noted that a candidate had obtained admission in a medical college by impersonation. “Therefore, the following queries are raised to be answered by the State in the next hearing,” the judges said. How many obtained admission in medical colleges by impersonation? Whether authorities verified the identity of those who wrote NEET and those who got admission? Whether any other case of impersonation or cheating had been detected? What is the stage of the case filed against the Theni college student? Is it a fact that the Principal of Theni Medical College had not taken any action in time in spite of knowing about the fraudulent admission? |