Madras High Court raps Pondy govt for illegal medical admissions

CHENNAI: Rapping the Puducherry government for helping colleges to make illegal admissions, the Madras High Court has upheld a single judge’s order discharging 34 postgraduate students illegally admitted to medical course.

“We have found that the Centralised Admission Committee (CENTAC) and the Health Department of Government of Puducherry were in active connivance with the colleges and have helped them to a great extent to implement their scheme to make illegal admissions,” wrote a division bench of the High Court comprising Justice R Subramanian and Justice R Kalaimathi.

“We sincerely hope that the administration changes its attitude towards medical education at least in the future,” read the judgment.

In 2017, six self-finance and deemed universities in Puducherry admitted 34 postgraduate students in medical courses violating rule 9-A of the Postgraduate regulations. In the same year, the National Medical Commission (NMC) discharged the admission of the students as they were not sponsored by the CENTAC.

Challenging this, the students moved the HC to set aside the order issued by NMC, however the single judge of the High Court upheld the discharge order.

In the meantime, the students sponsored by the CENTAC moved to HC claiming that they were denied admissions by private medical colleges in Puducherry for admitting non-eligible students.

Challenging the single judge’s order, the non-sponsored students appealed before HC seeking to set aside the discharge order.

Citing the Supreme Court’s direction, the bench observed that the admissions become illegal if there is no formal allotment by CENTAC.

“What shocks us more than the illegality in the admissions is the denial of seats to properly sponsored candidates by the colleges,” read the judgment. Further, the bench directed the private medical institutes and CENTAC to pay Rs 15 lakh each to the 16 students, who were denied admission, sponsored by CENTAC.