The Supreme Court has allowed a large number of medical students in Kerala to complete their MBBS degree despite their admission made by four private colleges in “violation” of rules framed by regulator, MCI.
The students were given the benefit of doubt as the entire mistake rested with the institutions for “wrongly” presenting admission criteria in the prospectus in 2007.
Though as many as 62 students were given admission in violation of the rules but a bench of Justices Cyriac Joseph and Gyan Sudha Misra said the benefit was being given to them as a special case as their was no fault on their part.
However, the bench was very harsh on the colleges and ordered the forfeiture of the entire fee to be collected from the 62 students and was directed to be deposited with Kerala’s Legal Service Authority for helping the poor litigants.
Besides, the four institutions; Jubilee Medical Mission College and Research Institute, Thrissur, MES Medical College, Perinthalmanna, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church Medical College, Kolenchery and Pushapagiri Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Thiruvalla, were directed to surrender as many of management quota seats as the general category students were admitted by them in “violation” of the MCI norms.
The stringent penalty imposed on the colleges would deprive them of a huge amount of money considering the fact that the fee charged by the private medical colleges is very high and the management quota seats are “sold” by them for exorbitant price.
“This is an eminently fit case for invoking Supreme Court’s special powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to permit the students to continue and complete the MBBS course to which they were admitted in 2007. Such an order is necessary for doing the complete justice in the matter,” the top court said.
“Since the irregular admissions were made by the colleges in violation of the MCI regulations due to ‘mistake or omission’ in the prospectus, they should surrender from the management quota the number of seats equal to the number of the irregular admissions made. Such surrender shall be made in phased manner starting with the year 2012,” the top court said.
However, a cap of eight seats for surrender every year was fixed after the colleges pleaded that the penalty would put them in financial mess.
The Kerala HC had stuck down their admissions but the top court said that the students could not be penalised for no fault of theirs. Another factor that went in favour of the 62 students was that all of them had secured marks above 60 in the senior secondary board exams.