Bombay HC Grants Relief, Temporarily Allows Admission of 2 MBBS Students Admitted through Institute-Level Counselling

Mumbai: Granting Interim Relief to two MBBS students, who got their seats through institute-level counselling, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court on Friday temporarily allowed their admission.

The HC bench of Justices Abhay Mantri and AS Chandurkar opined that the admissions of the petitioners should not be disturbed. Meanwhile, the bench has issued notices to the National Medical Commission (NMC), the State Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell, and the medical colleges where they got admitted.

Relief from the HC bench comes at a time when the Apex Medical Education Regulatory Body NMC recently invalidated the admission of these students for violation of admission guidelines. 

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that taking action against violation of prescribed admission procedure, NMC announced the cancellation of 141 stray-vacancy-round MBBS admissions in private medical colleges in Maharashtra.

The Apex Medical Body took this decision as the counselling for admission to these seats was conducted at the institute level through email communication violating the directions issued by NMC.

Also Read: Institute Level Counselling NOT ALLOWED: NMC Cancels 141 MBBS Admissions done at private medical colleges in Maharashtra

Issuing an order, the Commission recently condemned the State's decision to allow Institute-level admission and clarified that the notice issued by the State CET cell on September 26 to fill up the vacant seats was issued in clear violation of the NMC directive.

Earlier, in order to stop seat blocking in medical colleges, the Commission had clarified that counselling agencies in the State and the Centre will fill up the seats in all medical institutes through online counselling.

Clarifying that the mode of counselling will be online even for the stray vacancy round in Private Medical Colleges from this academic year, the NMC PG Board had further mentioned that no college/institute should conduct the counselling, including the stray vacancy round, in physical mode.

As per the latest media report by the Free Press Journal, the NMC directive cancelling the 141 admissions in the stray vacancy round was challenged by two of the students. While considering the matter, the Nagpur bench of Bombay HC on Friday issued an interim order and clarified that the admissions of the petitioners should not be disturbed.

The petitioners argued before the court that they only acted on the basis of the CET Cell notice to claim the vacant seats after three regular rounds of admissions and one centralised stray vacancy round.

The Daily adds that the State Government has stood by its decision to hold institute-level counselling. Responding to the NMC directive, the State Medical Education Department asserted that the institute-level admissions were made according to the admission rules of the State. Further, the State also referred to an order issued by the High Court last week, where the Court ruled that the State's PG admission rules to allow institute-level counselling will prevail over the directions issued by the Apex Medical Commission i.e. NMC.

However, the Court mentioned in its order that the State lacked clarity in this regard and directed the State to seek the medical education body's guidance before taking any decision. Even though the State received the green signal from the Court, it conducted PG admissions completely in a centralized manner.

Also Read: Either Unfilled or Cancelled: MBBS vacant seat count may surpass 2000 seats this year