BOGUS Caste Certificates Submitted for MBBS Admission: 7 Medicos under lens

Mumbai: In yet another instance of exploitation of SC/ST Act for acquiring MBBS admissions, seven medicos have now been reported to have submitted bogus caste certificates at Annasaheb Chudaman Patil Memorial (ACPM) Medical College in Dhule district, to get quota seats. However, No case has been registered yet by the state health department.

The MBBS students do not belong to the Scheduled Tribe (ST) but they reportedly tendered forged caste certificates and gained admission at the medical college under the said quota.

The state is yet to file an FIR with the police in the matter, confirmed an official from the State Secretariat.

The matter came to light when the Project Officer of an Integrated Tribal Development Project suspected that some of the MBBS students have submitted forged caste certificates in a bid to gain a seat at the medical college.

As per a recent report by The Times Of India, the Project Officer wrote to the ST Certificate Scrutiny Committee for the Nandurbar division asking it to confirm if the certificates were genuine, after suspecting that ST caste certificates submitted by some MBBS medicos were fabricated.

Accordingly, after thoroughly perusing the 30 certificates presented by the Officer to examine, the scrutiny committee stated that it had found seven of the validity certificates had not been issued by the office.

Subsequent to this reply from the committee in the last week of August, the Project Officer sent a letter to the medical college asking it to recover the money from the seven students, which they spared after getting MBBS admission in SC/ST quota.

"As of now, the department has been able to recover only Rs 12 lakh from a student. The others are yet to respond to the government's notice. Around Rs 60 lakh has to be recovered from the seven students," a senior official informed.

He also confirmed that an FIR is yet to be filed. "The department must be waiting for recovery against the scholarship amount paid by the state," added the official.

However, the no actions extreme action has been taken against the MBBS students as of now. While speaking to TOI, Dr S K Singhal the principal of ACPM Medical College conceded, "We have received a letter from the government just 2-3 days ago about recovering money from students. However, we have not taken any step towards rustication and are waiting for the recovery."

Securing MBBS admission via forged caste certificates is a misuse of the SC/ST Act and this tactic by the medicos continues to be a menace in Mumbai. Earlier, in March, Medical Dialogues has reported about the same incident where 4 MBBS students used bogus caste certificates to get MBBS admissions at JJ Hospital's Grant Medical College. The Director of Medical Education and Research imposed a fine of Rs10 lakh and filed criminal charges against the students.

Read Also: MBBS admission via BOGUS Caste Certificate: CASE FILED against 4 JJ Medicos