CHENNAI: Asserting that there is a ‘larger design’ adopted by private medical colleges in Tamil Nadu in collusion with the state authorities to make illegal admissions to PG medical courses, taking advantage of the pandemic situation, the Madras high court has ordered a CB-CID probe to unearth the conspiracy.
The agency must probe the amount received from each candidate admitted by self-financing colleges on the cut-off date (August 31) and file a report by January 30, 2021, said Justice N Anand Venkatesh.
“During this academic year, the pandemic has been taken advantage of to stage-manage and fill nearly 74 seats with un-meritorious candidates,” said the judge on Wednesday.
Conspiracy is something which can only be inferred or deduced from a given set of facts. The analysis made by the court based on the data provided by the authorities, clearly brings out a conspiracy between the officials belonging to the Directorate of Medical Education (DME) and self-financing colleges, the judge said.
The issue pertains to a batch of pleas moved by candidates who had been denied admission to PG medical courses desired by them as the state failed to conduct mop-up counselling to fill vacant PG seats in private medical colleges. Some candidates who got provisional admission through counselling were also denied admission by the colleges which allegedly demanded fee over and above the one fixed by the fee-fixation committee.
When the pleas came up for hearing, the DME informed the court that mop-up counselling could not be conducted due to the extraordinary situations induced by the pandemic within the August 31 admission deadline fixed by the Supreme Court.
However, a detailed analysis made by the court based on the data provided by DME clearly demonstrated that private colleges had virtually given admissions to candidates for some of the important clinical courses who otherwise do not deserve any admission through regular counselling.
“There is something more than what meets the eye when it comes to filling seats in private medical colleges other than by way of counselling. Obviously, these are all candidates who are capable of pulling strings and already had a clear understanding with the college concerned,” the judge said.
Every year some mechanism is devised by the self-financing colleges to fill up vacancies illegally, the court added.
“A student who secures a seat in this manner, is a bigger danger to this society. After completing the course, by hook or crook, they will be handling the lives of innocent people,” Justice Anand Venkatesh said.
He added that a society which perpetrates or encourages or celebrates mediocrity, particularly in admission to PG medical courses, is bound to sink and perish at some point of time.
The court then directed the CB-CID to investigate as to whether there was any conspiracy between the officials of DME and self-financing colleges in filling the stray vacancies.