MBBS Re-counselling completed at PIMS: 30 students Substituted with Meritorious Candidates

Puducherry: In compliance with the recently issued Supreme Court’s directive, the Centralised Admission Committee (Centac) has discontinued the 50 “wrong MBBS admissions” at the Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) and substituted them by the available proper candidates as per merit.

Medical Dialogues has recently reported that the Supreme Court had ordered Centac to re-allot seats on the basis of merit after taking serious cognition of the Centac Admission Supervisory Committee’s (ASC) submission that the MBBS students were wrongly admitted at PIMS, following the Madras HC order that permitted the medical college with a 50 MBBS seat boost.

In view of the top court’s order, the committee scrutinised the list of 50 students admitted by the medical institute and found that the college administration had not admitted the 17 students sponsored by the authority under the government quota, and in its place, allotted all 17 seats under management quota.

During the perusal process, the committee also found that 13 of the 33 students admitted under the management quota were not eligible. So, it sponsored 30 meritorious and deserving students (17 under government quota and 13 under management quota) and directed PIMS to admit them replacing the undeserving students admitted illegally.

In its recent press release, Centac stated,

“CENTAC scrutinized the List of 50 students submitted by PIMS to the Health Dept. After scrutiny, CENTAC re-sponsored the list of 17 students already sponsored on 02.09.2018 against Government Quota seats. Of these 17 students, one candidate who opted out was substituted by the next candidate in order of merit. Special Counseling was conducted on 15-10-2018 to fill 33 Management Quota seats.

330 students from the list sponsored on 31-08-2018 were called in order of merit and all the 33 seats were filled. Of the 33 seats filled 20 students were already admitted by PIMS. 13 students were sponsored as per merit and these included 2 students from the UT of Puducherry.”

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that based on the recommendations of the Medical Council of India (MCI), PIMS didn’t get the approval for an increase in 50 MBBS seats for the acaedmic year 2018-19 owing to its infrastructure shortcomings.

Challenging the said decision, the medical college knocked on the doors of the state High Court, whereby the HC bench on August 28 provided relief to PIMS by quashing the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry’s order and directing the ministry to grant renewal of permission for increase in number of MBBS seats from 100 to 150 for the academic year 2018-19.

However, challenging the said order by the HC, the MCI filed an SLP with the Supreme Court and on 05-09-2018 when the matter was mentioned; the apex court listed the matter for further date and stated that “In the meantime, there shall be stay of the operation of the impugned judgment and order.”

Read Also: Supreme Court Stay on MBBS Seat Increase at Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences

Based on the HC order, PIMS already admitted 50 more students on its own accord. Objecting to this filling of seats, Centralized Admission Committee (CEE) intervened and secured 17 MBBS seats under government quota.

As per the order given on October 9, the SC Bench stated that it was not inclined to interfere with the impugned judgment. In its observation, the bench noted, “Admittedly, there was no deficiency in the inspection held on April 23, 2018. However, the Government has relied upon the inspection which was held in August 2017 and February 2018 for the admission of 150 seats. The High Court has relied upon the inspection held in April 2018 and the fact remains that 150 seats were permitted to the institution with effect from 2014 onwards.”

However, the Admission Supervisory Committee (ASC) of Centac had submitted that the students were wrongly admitted. The apex court then ruled, “Let ASC scrutinise the fact and if any admissions were given wrongly, they shall be discontinued and substituted by the available proper candidates as per merit.”