Vacant MBBS seats: IT officials take their scanner to 4 Karnataka Private medical colleges

Bengaluru: The state of Karnataka with its maximum number of its medical colleges in the country, is now seeing its many private medical colleges falling under the scrutiny of IT-officials in suspected seat blocking scam.

The revelation came after the IT officials found that 1079 seats in 3 dozen private deemed universities pan India were vacant and suspected the college administrations to have allotted the MBBS seats via institutional quota. As per a senior IT official, the 3 medical institutes in Karnataka topped the list in terms of stray vacant seats among the deemed universities after the mop-up round for the academic year 2019.

A recent TOI report suggests that the 4 medical colleges included Sri Siddhartha Medical College, Tumakuru; Devaraj Urs Medical College, Kolar; Rajarajeshwari Medical College, Bengaluru and Sri Siddhartha Academy of Higher Education, T Beguru, Bengaluru. These medical colleges accounted for 258 vacant MBBS seats out of the 1079 total count.

It has been alleged that the college management illegally converted the government-quota seats allotted under NEET into management quota. The two Siddhartha colleges allegedly sold 185 MBBS seats, which means more than 60% of the seats were filled via the management quota.

Responding to this, the deemed universities have denied any misconduct and stated that 29 seats were left empty after the mop-up round and they admitted candidates from the merit list provided by the Medical Counselling Committee, thereby, no question of irregularity arises.

Also Read: MBBS seat blocking scam tuned to be worth Rs 100 crore: IT officials

Out of the 4 medical colleges, Sri Siddhartha Academy of Higher Education and Sri Siddhartha Medical College, Tumakuru is run by Congress leaders G Parameshwara while Devaraj Urs Medical College, Kolar is run by RL Jalappa.

These institutions were earlier raided by the officials in connection with a multi-crore tax evasion case linked to the NEET exams and were conducted against the former Karnataka ex-deputy chief minister G Parameshwara and former MP R L Jalappa's son J Rajendra.

A senior I-T official, who had been monitoring these raids informed TOI that they had found 168 out of 300 MBBS seats allotted under management quota by the three private medical colleges (which are deemed universities), were blocked and later sold to the students, who secured low ranks. These seats were allegedly sold at a minimum price of Rs 50 lakh per seat while the actual fee for these seats is only about Rs 6 lakh.

Also Read: MBBS Seat Blocking at Karnataka medical colleges: IT raids recover Rs 5 crore from top Politicians

It has recently been claimed by the IT officials that the scam involves many irregularities, including tax evasion and money laundering. IT sleuths also pegged the scam size in 3 Karnataka colleges at Rs 300 crore.

"We'll submit a detailed report once we complete the investigation," Pathanjali, income tax director general (investigations) told TOI.

Once the report is submitted, it will be examined by the Regional Economic Intelligence Committee. Thereafter, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) are anticipated to take up the case. The State Government, too, is expected to commission an investigation, suggests the daily.