HC relief to MBBS aspirant denied admission for Misspelt Surname

Aurangabad: An 18-year-old Schedule tribe girl denied admission in an MBBS course after a spelling mistake was found in her surname mentioned on the caste certificate, was saved by the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court. The court directed that she be admitted in the second round of admissions.

The Bench comprising of Justice AM Dhavale & Justice RM Borde while disposing of the petition on the very first hearing said: “since the petitioner is in possession of the validation certificate, her claim for getting enrolled in medical course deserves to be considered during the second round of the admissions.”

The authorities, on their account citing the discrepancy during the document verification, had disallowed her from participating in the first round of MBBS admissions under the reserved quota, Unhappy with the above move by the authorities,the girl aspirant moved the HC, which gave a direction to the authorities to include her in their 2^nd round of counselling.

The High Court also issued specific directives to DME, Saint George Hospital Mumbai, Commissioner of the State Common Entrance Test Cell to consider the girl aspirant for admission during their 2

nd round of admissions scheduled for later in the month.

The petitioner’s counsel Vijay Patil and Malhari Khokle contested that the girl student identified as Pallavi Kharode, from Kalamnur, Hingoli, belonged to the Andh, scheduled tribe. She had been ranked at 1,25,718 in the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (UG) in the merit list.

The lawyers revealed that her SC category ranking was 1,850. According to them, she was willing to get herself admitted under the SC category, provided there was a seat vacancy, reported TOI.

Looking back, the student aspirant had been issued a caste and validity certificate, with her surname wrongly recorded as Kharwade instead of Kharode.

As the typographical error was noticed much later, an application was moved by the girl to the sub-divisional officer for issuance of corrected tribe certificate. On receiving the corrected tribe certificate, she approached the scrutiny committee for the issuance of validity certificate indicating the correct surname.

The petitioner received a corrected certificate of validity on 3rd July 2018. However, her claim to admission in a medical course has not been acknowledged yet. The petitioner’s claim stood rejected, with the authorities citing that on the date prescribed for document verification she was not in possession of a correct caste certificate or validation certificate, indicating the correct surname.