Madras HC Bench upholds single judge verdict on CB-CID probe into medical admissions 

On Monday, July 4, the first Bench of the Madras High Court upheld an order passed by a single judge which directed the CB-CID to probe an alleged conspiracy between officials of the Directorate of Medical Education (DME) and a few private medical colleges in accommodating 74 management quota post-graduate (PG) seats without conducting mop-up counselling for the 2020-21 academic year, as stated in a report by PTI.

On July 4, while disposing of an appeal from the selection board secretary Dr Devarajan, the Bench of Chief Justice MN Bhandari and Justice N Mala upheld the orders passed in October 2020. Considering the plight of meritorious students who lost a chance to get admission in PG courses or couldn't shift to a better branch of Medicine as the mop-up counselling was not conducted, the single judge directed the DGP (Director General of Police) to make sure that the scope of the inquiry was extended to find the amount of money collected by private colleges from students admitted on August 31, 2020, the last date for PG admissions, as stated in a report by PTI.

Further, as per a report in LiveLaw, the court passed an order based on an appeal filed by Dr G Selvarajan, former secretary of the Selection Committee, DME, seeking a stay of the single bench where Dr Selvarajan, along with others, were found guilty by the court for not conducting the mop-up for the management seats.

Additionally, it was also found in a writ petition that Dr Selvarajan and others were giving seats to non-meritorious by excluding the meritorious ones. Therefore, the court ordered an inquiry on Dr Selvarajan and others. Consequently, based on the result of the investigation, the court issued directions to stop the pension and other benefits payable to individuals, as stated in a report by LiveLaw.