It's official. The MBBS convocation for the batch that started in 2017 at the Christian Medical College, Vellore will have just one student. Though their case is coming up for hearing in the Supreme Court on December 6, the college has decided not to have an MBBS intake this year and stick to teaching their one and only student.
Two months ago, all everybody could talk about was the NEET fiasco and then out of the blue CMC stunned the medical community by admitting just one student for the academic year. That one student was Siddhant Nair, the son of a slain soldier who was nominated by the Government of India under the defence quota. The Institution had refused to comply with the Supreme Court's order to have common counselling for all students. CMC wasn't opposing NEET but defended their right to hold their own counselling because the institution has their own criteria for admitting its students - which is to admit students who have a passion to work in rural areas. They only admitted Siddhant because he was a nominee, otherwise, CMC wouldn't have made any admissions this year.
However, there were still many including Siddhant and his family, who thought that CMC might admit more students in the following months. But it's been more than two months and no admissions have been made and the CMC has made it clear that there will definitely be no more admissions. The case was up for hearing in October but has been adjourned to December 6, there has been no progress on the case as yet. "There has been no verdict yet and the matter is still sub-judice but we won't be changing our stance," a senior member of the administration said.
The senior member said that their stand on the matter will remain the same for the coming year as well."The institution will take a decision on the admissions on a year to year basis. For now, we're not making any changes to our decision," he said.
So Siddhant continues to have the class and the teachers to himself. "Yes, we are holding classes according to schedule even if he is the only student in the class. We have nothing against running this course and he was a government nominee so he deserved his seat," the senior said.
Siddhant's mother Supriya Nair said that Siddhant did not feel left out as he had been integrated well with the other senior students. not in class but in other activities. "He's doing fantastically well, he is integrated with other students so they do all their activities together, which is great."
So, if Siddhant continues to do well and ace all his exams, he'll be the only student to graduate in 2022.
