Parents to move SC to restart medical admissions

"Many students couldn't get admitted because of the chaos around 'spot admissions'. Why should the seats be allowed to lapse because of DMER’s fault?" said Mahendra Choudhari, one of the petitioning parents.

With a number of seats reportedly left vacant in the state's private medical and dental colleges after admissions came to a close, parents of some aspirants are planning to move the Supreme Court with a plea to restart the procedure. Last month, the apex court had rejected a similar plea by the state's Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER).

The Supreme Court had allowed deemed medical and dental institutes to conduct admissions till October 7. (HT FILE PHOTO)

A few days earlier, dental colleges with vacant seats had also asked the Dental Council of India (DCI) and the Central government to seek an extension in the admission deadline from the SC.

The SC had allowed deemed medical and dental institutes to conduct admissions till October 7. However, all government and private institutes had to finish the procedure — except for the All India Quota seats — before midnight of September 30, as per the apex court’s April order. While the state government was able to fill all the seats in its dental colleges and all but six seats in its medical colleges, several seats in private dental colleges are still vacant.

"Many students couldn't get admitted because of the chaos around 'spot admissions'. Why should the seats be allowed to lapse because of DMER’s fault?" said Mahendra Choudhari, one of the petitioning parents.

During spot admissions on October 7, the DMER had refused to allot seats to students who had already secured admission in one of the government medical or dental colleges and were willing to cancel their admissions. However, some private colleges reportedly accepted these aspirants on the basis of photocopies of their documents, as their originals were with the institutes they were earlier admitted to. Later in the day, the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court directed the DMER to admit students even if they couldn't produce original documents.

"The transfer of students from one college to the other resulted in duplication of admissions. Due to confusion, many low scoring students couldn’t find a seat," said Choudhari, adding that around 40 to 50 parents will be a part of the petition.