‘Suspension issued sans giving petitioner opportunity to be heard’: HC allows suspended MBBS student to sit for exams

Kolkata: A Calcutta High Court’s vacation bench has directed the state to allow a suspended second year MBBS student, accused of impersonating other candidates in the NEET exam, to sit for his supplementary papers. The bench of Justice Raja Basu Chowdhury, passed an interim order in the writ petition where the petitioner challenged a suspension order dated April 29, 2025, issued by the principal of Raiganj Medical College, North Dinajpur, which barred him from continuing his MBBS course. The petitioner, a student admitted to Raiganj Medical College after qualifying NEET UG, had passed his first-year MBBS examinations but failed one subject— Pathology — in the second-year examinations held in December 2024. He intended to appear in the supplementary exams scheduled for June 9 and 10, 2025.

The suspension followed an FIR lodged on May 5, 2024, by the Tilak Marg Police Station, New Delhi, alleging that the petitioner had impersonated candidates in the NEET examination. He was charged under Sections 419, 420, 468, 471 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code but was granted bail by an Additional Sessions Judge in New Delhi on June 3, 2024. No chargesheet had been filed as of the date of hearing. The court noted that the suspension was issued without giving the petitioner an opportunity to be heard and appeared to be based on a direction from the National Medical Commission dated April 15, 2025, which was not produced. The Court held that there was no statutory provision authorising such suspension in cases of impersonation, in contrast to cases like ragging. Consequently, the court stayed the suspension order for the purpose of allowing the petitioner to appear provisionally in the Pathology examinations. However, it directed that the examination results would not be published without further leave of the court. The matter is again listed for hearing in the monthly list of July.