After SC Rap, Bihar completes its MBBS admissions at lightening Speed

Patna: The state of Bihar worked at full speed towards completing its MBBS admissions process after the Supreme Court recently slammed the state government for the delay, calling its reasoning for the same as "facetious"

For delaying the admissions to medical colleges and on top, not giving a proper justification on it, the Supreme Court last week pulled up the Bihar government calling the feat "undoubtedly detrimental to the education sector of the state".

The order passed by a bench comprising honourable Justice SA Bobde and Justice L Nageswara Rao who also gave 48 hours to the Bihar Combined Entrance Competitive Examination Board (BCECEB) to select the students for allotment of seats for first-year MBBS Course at private medical colleges.

During the hearing, the bench noticed that the problem had arisen because stray vacancies, which were meant to be filled up after the mop-up round. The bench observed that the responsibility for the same lied with the state and asserted,

"Admittedly, the responsibility lies with the State of Bihar which was supposed to forward the list for 10X vacancies under the Notification No.MCI-34(41)/2017-Med./172225 dated 05.02.2018 issued by MCI stipulating the time schedule which was set down for completion of the admission process for the NEET UG 2018 Admission and Counselling Process."

The last date for completion of the mop-up round of State Counselling was 8 August. On this, the court opined that the state government "moved at the pace of pachyderm" and carried out the mop-up round up to 27 August. The court noted,

"Not only this was long past the last date of joining that was 12.8.2018, it is distressing to note that the State of Bihar has not even sent the list for these vacancies at any point of time to the writ petitioner/applicants."

When asked how the admissions got postponed in the first place, the counsel for the state presented that the delay occurred due to some "genuine error" which "prevented the State Government from sending the list due to an enquiry conducted in respect of the admissions of the last year and the fact that the Health Department forwarded the list of vacancies to the BCECE Board only on 31.8.2018 by which time it was too late to maintain the time schedule."

However, the court found this assertion of the state government "a facetious explanation" but they declined to conclude anything without having an appropriate enquiry into the matter first as to ascertain the fault.

It, therefore, directed the Chief Secretary of the State to have an enquiry conducted into the delay, which the bench said was "undoubtedly detrimental to the interests of students in particular and generally the education sector in the State".

"The Chief Secretary of the State of Bihar may conduct an enquiry and forward a report to this Court within a period of three months from today. The Registry is directed to send a copy of this order to the Chief Secretary of the State of Bihar forthwith."

As far as admissions are concerned, the court couldn't find any fault with the colleges or the students for not having been admitted despite being qualified and ready to pay the requisite fees. Therefore, granting time to the state till 8 September to finish the admission process, the bench ordered,

"In the circumstances, we are constrained to direct the State of Bihar to recommend the eligible students for admission. However, having regard to the quantifiable number of seats involved i.e. 17, we consider it appropriate to direct the BCECE Board to select the students for allotment of seats for first -year MBBS Course to the applicants/writ petitioner. The BCECE Board shall complete the above exercise within a period of 48 hours from tomorrow."