New NMC Regulations spell out Harsher Penalties for Backdoor MBBS admissions in medical colleges

New Delhi: Introducing harsher penalties for backdoor entries in undergraduate medical admission, the National Medical Commission has now specified that medical colleges violating the norms for MBBS admission shall have to pay a huge fine ranging from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore per seat.

The amount of penalty will increase for any subsequent attempt and the medical college may also be barred from granting admission to students and double the seats shall be reduced for the violation, the apex medical commission has specified in the recently released Graduate Medical Education Regulations of Undergraduate Medical Education Board, 2023.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that introducing changes in the undergraduate medical education system NMC recently released the draft of these regulations on public domain and also invited comments in this regard from the public and the stakeholders.

Among several issues regarding the undergraduate medical education, NMC has also addressed the matter of admission, counselling and migration process involving the UG medical admission including the conduct of NEET UG, the eligibility criteria, break of tie-in marks of NEET UG, common counselling, and student migration.

Specifying that all the students getting admitted to UG medical courses need to clear the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET-UG) examination, NMC specified that "no medical institute shall admit any candidate to the graduate course in contravention of these regulations."

It has been specified by the apex medical body that the UG Medical Education Board shall publish guidelines for the conduct of common counselling, and the designated authority under section 17 shall conduct the common counselling in conformity with such published guidelines.

Addressing the issue of backdoor entries in medical admission and in an attempt to put a stop to the same, the commission specified in the draft, "Provided the medical institution granting admission to any student in contravention of these Regulations, shall be liable to be fined for Rupees 50 lakh per seat for the first-time and for the second time of non-compliance, Rupees one Crore per seat and for any subsequent non-compliance or continued contravention the medical institution shall be barred from granting admissions to any students from the next academic year."

"Student shall be discharged from the medical college and double the number of seats shall be reduced for one or more years," it further added.

With this, NMC has now spelled out harsher penalties for backdoor entries in medical education and given clarity regarding the issue of penalty. Even though the previous regulations also mentioned about the penalty imposed on medical institutes for violating the rules of UG medical admission, there was lack of clarity in this regard.

According to 2018 amendments to the MCI Regulations on Graduate Medical Education, 1997, "No authority/institution shall admit any candidate to the MBBS course in contravention of the criteria/procedure as laid down by these Regulations and / or in violation of the judgments passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in respect of admissions. Any candidate admitted in contravention/violation of aforesaid shall be discharged by the Council forthwith."

"The authority / institution which grants admission to any student in contravention / violation of the Regulations and / or the judgments passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court, shall also be liable to face such action as may be prescribed by the Council, including surrender of seats equivalent to the extent of such admission made from its sanctioned intake capacity for the succeeding academic year/years," the previous regulations further mentioned.

However, the draft of GMER, 2023 has provided clarity regarding the amount of penalty imposed on the medical colleges for backdoor entries. Introducing harsher penalties, it has also specified that, "Student shall be discharged from the medical college and double the number of seats shall be reduced for one or more years."

To view the NMC Draft, click on the link below:

https://medicaldialogues.in/pdf_upload/uemeb-regulations-203379.pdf

Click here to view the previous NMC norms

Also Read: NMC Releases Draft Graduate Medical Education Regulations 2023, Invites Comments