Backdoor entry in colleges should stop, lakhs of students work hard to get admission: HC

New Delhi: Lakhs of students in the country work hard and toil to secure admissions in educational institutions on the basis of merit and it is high time that backdoor entries there, including medical colleges, should stop, the Delhi High Court has said.

The high court's observation came while dismissing an appeal by five students who were granted admission in 2016 by L N Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Bhopal, without their undergoing the centralised counselling conducted by the Department of Medical Education (DME).

However, according to the Supreme Court's direction, admissions in all government and private medical colleges in the country have to be done through the centralised counselling system on the basis of NEET examination result.

Consequently, the Medical Council of India (MCI) issued letters of discharge regarding the five petitioners in April 2017 and thereafter, several more communications were sent but neither the students nor the medical college paid any heed to them.

The college continued to treat the petitioners as their students and allowed them to attend the course, appear in the examinations and get promoted.

Eventually, the five petitioners filed a petition seeking quashing of the discharge communications issued by the MCI and for direction that they be permitted to continue their studies in the medical college as regular medical students, which was dismissed by the single judge.

They filed an appeal challenging the single judge's order. However, a bench of Justices VipinSanghi and Jasmeet Singh also dismissed the appeal saying there is no merit in it. "It is high time that such backdoor entries in educational institutions, including medical colleges, should

stop. Lakhs of students all

over the country work hard and toil to secure admissions to educational institutions on the basis of their merit," the bench said in its order on September 9.

"To permit any backdoor entry to any educational institution would be grossly unfair to those who are denied admission, despite being more meritorious, on account of the seats being taken and blocked by such backdoor entrants, it said.

It further added that the petitioners have only themselves to blame for the mess that they find themselves in.

"Had they acted in terms of the discharge letter of April 26, 2017, they would have saved four years of their lives. But they did not, and acted recklessly. Despite not having any interim orders in their favour in their writ petition, they continued to attend the course obviously, at their own peril, the court said.

Advocate T Singhdev, representing the MCI, said despite discharge of the petitioners by the MCI, as early as on April 26, 2017, the same was not acted upon either by the college or by the students and they continued to ignore it even after repeated communications.