PIMS admission process to start afresh after Supreme Court ruling 

Special Correspondent 
 
PUDUCHERRY, October 13, 2018 00:54 IST

Court had directed Centac to allot seats on the basis of merit

The Supreme Court has nixed all “wrong admissions” of MBBS students at the Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) and directed the Centralised Admission Committee (Centac) to allot the seats instead to eligible candidates on the basis of merit.

As a consequence of the October 9 order requiring compliance within seven days, all MBBS students who were given admission to PIMS during the counselling conducted by Centac, but were denied enrolment by the private medical college, get another chance to gain admission, while those who were admitted through irregular means have been left high and dry.

A Supreme Court Bench of Arun Mishra and Vineet Saran passed the orders while disposing of an appeal through a special leave petition by the Medical Council of India against an order of the Madras High Court.

The High Court had struck down the MCI’s order and allowed the PIMS to admit MBBS students to 50 seats. Setting aside the MCI directive granting renewal of permission to 100 out of 150 seats, the High Court also directed the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to grant renewal of permission to 50 seats.

The Bench stated that while it was not inclined to interfere with the impugned judgment, the Admission Supervisory Committee (ASC) of Centac had submitted that the students were wrongly admitted.

“Admittedly, there was no deficiency in the inspection held on April 23, 2018. However, the Government has relied upon the inspection which was held in August, 2017 and February, 2018 for the admission of 150 seats. The High Court has relied upon the inspection held in April, 2018 and the fact remains that 150 seats were permitted to the institution with effect from 2014 onwards,” the order said.

“Let ASC scrutinise the fact and if any admissions were given wrongly, they shall be discontinued and substituted by the available proper candidates as per merit. Let this exercise be done within a period of seven days from today,” the Bench ruled.

The apex court also directed that in case any student has been admitted wrongly, his/her fees shall be refunded by the college. “This order is passed on the peculiar facts of this case, not to be treated as precedent in any other case,” the Bench ruled.
Fee structure

A seat-sharing deadlock has persisted between the government and the private medical college. While by accepted convention, private medical colleges are bound to share 50% of the medical seats under the government quota, PIMS refused to comply citing the low fee structure for candidates admitted through the CENTAC merit list.

In June, the Deputy Secretary to Government (Health) directed the PIMS to admit 37 students sponsored by CENTAC against government quota without fail. The order was issued in response to the letter submitted by PIMS dated June 25 stating that the institute would not be allotting seats to the government for the academic year 2018-19.

The Health Department said the decision taken at a meeting chaired by the Chief Minister with the representatives of medical institutions was final on the seats to be shared under government quota.

The essentiality certificate issued was under the condition that the college would share seats under the government quota, the order said.