E-Paper
Ramadoss under cloud
Former union health minister and Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) leader Anbumani Ramadoss is reportedly under the CBI scanner for allowing the Indore-based Index Medical College to enroll some students in 2008-09, despite objections by the Supreme Court (SC) and Medical Council of India (MCI).
Former union health minister and Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) leader Anbumani Ramadoss is reportedly under the CBI scanner for allowing the Indore-based Index Medical College to enroll some students in 2008-09, despite objections by the Supreme Court (SC) and Medical Council of India (MCI).
The college management, however, claims to have had valid permissions and calls the entire episode ‘political’. College chairman Suresh Singh Bhadoria denied taking any favours from the ministry. “These are all rumours. Permissions were duly granted after a four-member team formed by the center, on the direction of the SC, gave us a nod,” he said.
The college, which started in 2007-08, has been in the eye of controversy ever since its inception. Last month, the CBI had even raided it to probe the Ramadoss connection.
Doubts were raised after the health ministry gave its nod to the college late in the evening on the same day the SC denied permission on September 26, 2008 after the MCI had recommended not to renew permission as the college lacked infrastructure and faculty.
Earlier, in 2009, a PIL was filed against the college contending that it hired doctors just for a day or two to pose as faculty members during MCI visits. According to an ex-staff member of the college Rs 10,000 per day were paid to those doctors. The nod by the centre was allegedly based on this and the documents forged by the college. However, college admission committee chairman Arun Arora told HT, “Those faculty members and doctors were hired by us but later we got to know that they worked with other hospitals also, so we removed them.”
The college has previously been embroiled in a quota fee controversy, too. Students’ counsel Paritosh Gupta says, “The college had been engaged in giving backdoor admissions to non-deserving candidates under various quotas.”
