'No Sympathies To Students Who Entered Through Backdoor': SC Dismisses Plea Of MBBS Students Admitted Through Private Counselling

No sympathies can be shown to students who have entered through backdoor, the Supreme Court observed while dismissing review petitions filed by some medical students.

The bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao, BR Gavai and Krishna Murari observed that the medical admissions conducted through the private counselling is illegal.

Some medical students had approached the Apex Court challenging the discharge order issued by the Medical Council of India to the Glocal Medical College and directed to discharge 67 students admitted by it. They submitted that they were admitted through the counselling conducted by the Glocal Medical College and that they have also cleared the 1st year and 2nd year examination. Opposing their plea, the MCI and the State of Uttar Pradesh submitted that they were admitted by backdoor entry and that their admission is the result of collusion between the Glocal Medical College and them.

The court noted that there is a Notification issued by the State of Uttar Pradesh prescribing centralized counselling for all institutions for admission to MBBS/BDS course in the State, based on NEET 2016. Though minority institutions were allowed to admit the students of their community based on Centralized Counselling held by the State on the basis of NEET 2016, the same was to be done without deviating from the merit of the said students, the court observed.

"25. It could thus clearly be seen that the private counselling by Glocal Medical College was conducted contrary to the Notification issued by the State of Uttar Pradesh, which Notification, in turn, was based on the judgment of this Court in the case of Modern Dental College and Research Centre (supra), which was decided on 2.5.2016. Not only that, but this Court by order dated 22.9.2016 had further clarified the position. It will further be pertinent to note that the Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court vide judgment dated 15.9.2016 had negated the challenge to the Notification dated 22.8.2016", the bench observed.

The court observed that the notification issued by the State of Uttar Pradesh clearly provided that the admissions were to be done only through the centralized admission process. Referring to judgments in Guru Nanak Dev University v. Parminder Kr. Bansal, Gurdeep Singh v. State of J & K, K.S. Bhoir v. State of Maharashtra and Mahatma Gandhi University and another v. GIS Jose and National Council for Teacher Education and another v. Venus Public Education Society, the bench observed:

27. In the light of this position, it was not at all permissible for the Glocal Medical College to have conducted private counselling. The admissions which were conducted through the said private counselling cannot be termed as anything else but per se illegal. . Though we have all the sympathies with the students, we will not be in a position to do anything to protect the admissions, which were done in a patently illegal manner. 

Case: Abdul Ahad vs. Union of India ; RP(C) 1835-1836 of 2020

Citation: LL 2021 SC 395

Coram: Justices L. Nageswara Rao, BR Gavai and Krishna Murari

Counsel: Sr. Adv Neeraj Kishan Kaul for petitioners, Adv Dhawal Mohan, Adv Ankit Goel for respondents

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