“Lakhs of students all over the country work hard and toil to secure admissions to educational institutions on the basis of their merit”
The Delhi High Court has remarked that permitting "backdoor" entry of students to any educational institution would be grossly unfair to those candidates who are denied admission, despite being more meritorious, on account of the seats being taken and blocked by such backdoor entrants.
"It is high time that such backdoor entries in educational institutions, including Medical Colleges, should stop. Lakhs of students all over the country work hard and toil to secure admissions to educational institutions on the basis of their merit," a bench of Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Jasmeet Singh said.
The high court’s remarks came while dismissing an appeal filed by five students who were granted admission in 2016 by L.N. Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Bhopal, without their undergoing the centralised counselling conducted by the Department of Medical Education (DME).
The Medical Council of India (MCI), had then issued letters of discharge in respect of the five students. Against the discharge letters, the five students moved the high court seeking that they be permitted to continue their studies in the college as regular medical students.
In the meantime, the college continued to treat them as students and allowed them to attend the course, appear in the examinations and get promoted.
"The petitioners (students) have only themselves to blame for the mess that they find themselves in," the high court said adding if they had acted in terms of the discharge letter, they would have saved four years of their lives.
The high court said that despite not having any orders in their favour, they continued to attend the course at their own peril.
It relied on a judgment of the Supreme Court where it held that in the case of backdoor entries, i.e. grant of admissions in Medical Colleges by bye-passing the central counselling system, the Court would not allow the students to continue their course on equitable considerations.
The high court also came down heavily on the medical college saying it appears to have brazenly gone ahead to grant admission to the five students between September 04-28, 2016 without communicating the vacancies position to the DME.
It noted that the medical college does not appear to have informed the DME of the vacancy position, and proceeded to grant admissions to the five students much before the close of the date of admission on October 7, 2016.
Due to this the other meritorious students remained unaware that they could stake a claim against a seat in the medical college on the basis of their merit, the high court said.
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