HC grants temp admission to 2 MBBS students

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court has granted temporary admission to two MBBS students whose seats were initially invalidated by the National Medical Commission (NMC). The court has issued notices to the NMC, the state CET Cell, and the medical college.

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MUMBAI: The Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court has granted temporary admission to two MBBS students whose seats were initially invalidated by the National Medical Commission (NMC). These students challenged a circular issued by the NMC, which sought to cancel 141 admissions made in the final stray vacancy round of MBBS admissions in the state.

The court has issued notices to the NMC, the state Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell and the medical college in which the students were allotted seats. In an interim order, a bench comprising Justices Abhay Mantri and A S Chandurkar has ruled in favour of the students, stating that their admission should not be disturbed.

The decision by the NMC to invalidate admissions was a response to the state’s departure from the NMC’s directive to conduct the entire admission process in a centralised online mode. The state allowed institutes to handle counselling for the vacant seats in the last round of undergraduate medical admissions, which sparked controversy as some argued that it favoured certain colleges in seat allocation.

The sudden shift from centralised to institute-level admission raised concerns among the 141 students who had secured seats in the last round of admissions. These petitioners maintain that they acted in accordance with a public notice from the CET Cell, claiming the available seats after three regular admission rounds and one central stray vacancy round.

Despite the court’s ruling, the state government remains committed to its decision to delegate counselling to colleges. The state’s medical education department has argued that institute-level admissions were conducted within the state’s admission rules, referencing a recent high court verdict that upheld the state’s PG admission rules over the NMC’s directive.

However, the court has noted a lack of clarity on the matter and advised the state to seek guidance from the medical education body before taking further action and to call all parties for a hearing on November 2.