Karnataka: St John's Academy renders apology to HC over notice

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has been tendered an unconditional apology by St John’s National Academy, on Thursday, for displaying a notice on its website. The Apex court of the state has been informed by the Dean of the college that the notice will be removed from its website .

The notice objected to by the High Court states: “It is approaching the High Court to have St John’s PG admissions 2017-18 declared valid on several legal grounds. St John’s is confident of getting a favourable verdict from the High Court validating its PG admissions for 2017-18.”

The notice was put up after the Directorate of Medical Education(DME), raised the issue of the Academy’s grounds for admission and admission procedure for post graduate courses being invalid.

A division bench comprising Justice Jayant Patel and Justice N K Sudhindra Rao in its order, defined the notice as “objectionable’’ reports Deccan Herald.

The bench, while hearing a petition filed by Dr Rachana Kishore Ubrangala, an MBBS,  Mangaluru, graduate had granted a stay on the admission process for the postgraduate medical courses, at St John’s National Academy of Health Sciences.

The bench also put a stay on collection of fees from candidates named in the provisional list for admission to the PG medical course (if the fee is yet to be collected) and directed the college to keep one seat of MD (Paediatrics) vacant.

The petitioner’s contention was that though she had fared very well in NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test), she had not found a place in the provisional list; whereas lower ranking students had been considered for admissions by the Academy.

She also alleged that St John’s was adhering to its own admission process, instead of that prescribed by the Supreme Court, based on NEET ranking and fixed by the Medical Council of India. The academy, the petitioner alleged, has included practical test scores and interview, in addition to the NEET ranking.

The bench, in its previous order, had said, “It prima facie appears that the MCI regulations provide for NEET ranking, and such criteria will be diluted, if any other marks are considered, like practical test, interview etc.”