Candidates allege irregularities during NEET counselling in Bhopal, stage protest

Students in Madhya Pradesh’s capital Bhopal staged a protest in front of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s residence on Sunday night alleging irregularities during the counselling session for admission to over 90 seats in the state’s private medical colleges through National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET).

Students created a ruckus during the counselling session for admission to 94 vacant seats in eight private medical colleges throughout the day alleging delay in the allotment and for non-display of the vacant seats in various medical colleges, among other complaints.

Candidates were unhappy that the seat allotment list for the mop up round, which was to be released at 9am, came out after a delay of two hours at 11am. Students were also angry with the delay in the release of the merit list of 940 candidates, which was released around 5.30pm by the state level counselling committee.

They complained that a candidate, who secured the 13th rank at the national level and first rank at the state level, also featured in the merit list of the mop up round under the state quota.

Their other complaint was that candidates from other states also featured in the merit list despite the Supreme Court and the Madhya Pradesh high court orders that only those from the state will be considered for admission.

The Madhya Pradesh government recently cancelled the admissions of students to medical and dental colleges through NEET 2017 after the Supreme Court rejected the state’s plea challenging the high court’s August 24 decision on admission of non-domicile candidates.

The counselling process was scheduled to start from August 31 and according to the top court’s order, a new merit list had to be issued and the process completed within 10 days.

The controversy erupted over allegations that a number of candidates belonging to other states secured admission in the state’s medical colleges on fake domicile certificates.

The complainants moved the high court after the directorate of medical education didn’t take any action despite repeated complaints about the names of outsiders students.

Jabalpur bench of the high court granted a stay over the counselling and directed the state authorities to conduct counselling, draw up the list of candidates eligible under the state quota by taking into consideration and treating as final the option and information regarding the state to which the candidate belongs as furnished in the NEET form.

Later, the state government moved the Supreme Court, which refused to interfere with the order of the high court.

The directorate of medical education found that 34 students mentioned the name of other states in the NEET form but sought admission in the state quota seats in MP.